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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Jean-Jacques Rousseau once remarked that “the English people believe itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.” The same can be said of the modern Canadian populace except that even when we are “in-between” governments we are still largely a people living in self-deception. Something has been rotting in the State of Canada for a long, long time.

Toronto Burning?

The events in Toronto over the past weekend have illustrated a number of startling facts. To begin with, the Toronto Police arrested over 900 people. The vast majority of those have been and will be let go, without any charges. It has already become clear that what the Police were doing is “fishing.” They rounded up hundreds of innocent people in an effort to find possibly a handful of guilty individuals. This is a clear violation of rights, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has already suggested that court challenges will be imminent.

Remember that controversial “five meter rule,” passed in secret in the Ontario Legislature, that allowed Police to search anyone within a five meter radius of the G20 security fence, ask for identification, and arrest anyone who resisted? Well, funny story…no such rule existed. The Police lied. As of this writing, they have just admitted that they lied. But it’s okay; they lied to protect us. Without a shred of exaggeration this is the argument that just about every military junta and dictatorship in history has made when “momentarily suspending democracy.” We are suspending your rights to protect you. Protect you from the insidious dangerous “other.”

In Toronto the “other” was the notorious Black Bloc. The Chief of Police, Bill Blair, has said of the Black Bloc that “they came to destroy our city.” You will notice that in much of the media the argument has been advanced that the Black Bloc are foreigners of some sort or another. Either they are Europeans, professional terrorists or worse still…Quebecois (who were specifically targeted by the Police). No God-fearing, lawful, English-speaking Canadian could possibly engage in the sort of actions we saw in Toronto. We represent God and Country, Law and Order, the Crown and Parliament. They represent chaos, “anarchy” and violence.

Ironically enough, the entire idea behind Black Bloc is not exclusion but inclusion. The masks are worn to say, “we are you.” You need only don the black to join a mass that will protect you, will free you, will fight for you and all of us. Nobody complains about the heavily armed, masked Police. A body that in two days has committed far, far more crimes and more egregious crimes than the humble Black Bloc could ever hope to. Remember friends, when the people resist and put their lives and bodies on the line like they did in Toronto they have no mechanism to rely on other than themselves, their friends, their families, and the bonds of solidarity that exist between these groups. When people go into the streets like they did in Toronto, to confront a cabal of men and women who are actively destroying the lives of billions of people around the world, including our own—we do so with love. Love for our sisters and brothers in Toronto as much as in Mali and Nigeria and Thailand and Burma and Columbia and Argentina.

But Jasmin, you say, this one incident. One, unfortunate, weekend where things got out hand for everyone. No, it is not one weekend; it is a pattern of behaviour.

During the Olympics, the same massive security apparatus that was deployed in Toronto was used in Vancouver. Hundreds of cameras, miles and miles of fencing and a billion dollars worth of Police, military and private security guarding a two-week party for the rich and super-rich. The same violations, the same instances of police brutality were reported once again. Much as they were in Vancouver in 1997 at APAC Summit and in 2001 at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. Again and again and again the Police and state, protecting the forces of capital, act with impunity, with violence, brutalizing ordinary citizens, outraged at the fate of their democracies.

Days before the G20, CSIS came out and without any sort of evidence whatsoever (that they were able to produce, at least) accused potentially thousands of ordinary citizens of being spies for foreign governments. When the expected storm of controversy erupted over this claim, CSIS furiously attempted backtrack on this claim. So, to what end would they do this? As in Toronto, as in Vancouver, as in Quebec it is to rule by fear, to rule by decree.

Our Local Lords

In BC an incredibly unpopular tax is being advanced despite the protests of the vast majority of British Columbians. The fact that we, as ordinary people, oppose the HST is irrelevant. Who supports it? The governing BC Liberals, the right-wing Fraser Institute and the corporate establishment they both serve. They rule through decree and the brute force of legislative power. The recall campaign that has been launched against members of this government, while popular amongst ordinary people, will have a difficult time toppling any actual MLAs. The rules for launching a successful recall campaign are so steep as to be functionally impossible. As unpopular as the Liberals have become, our system is as such that they are likely to remain in office until 2013, at least.

And if they do, the odds of them losing an actual election are just as shaky a prospect. Because, we must recall, Canada is one of only a handful of “democracies” in the world which continues to use a First-Past-the-Post (FPP) electoral system, instead of some variation of Proportional Representation (PR). Thus, as it happens regularly in this Province in particular, we allow parties to win perhaps 50% of the popular vote and then translate this into 98% of the actual seats in the Legislature and Parliament. And even when an opposition party wins more than 2% of the seats, like the current incarnation of the NDP, they exercise exactly 0% of the actual power in Victoria.

It doesn’t help that when we had a referendum to attempt to change this atrocious system, the party that had historically made electoral reform part of its platform suddenly said nothing. In fact, in practice, they opposed electoral reform. Why? Because the NDP would rather be the perpetual opposition than allow for challenger to emerge on its Left that might actually force this party to stand on principle and ideology rather than an oft quoted rumour that they are not, in fact, the BC Liberals. They have become party to this same system, merely a Janus face of it.

At least in Ottawa there a multiple parties, you say. Often times, agreements are struck between the parties and this represents a consensus of the governed, yes? To answer this we should merely recall the most common refrain that was heard in the media and amongst many citizens when the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals attempted to form a coalition government. It was unconstitutional and illegal, they told us. We do not even understand our own system of government. We do not understand just how warped our “democracy” has become. We see little danger in a government repeatedly suspending parliament when they are in danger of losing power. Perhaps, understandably given our history, we see this merely as the latest in a long series of authoritarian practices which have sullied our “democratic” record.

A History of Violence

Say what you will about our imperialist cousins to the South but at least they had the “common sense” to revolt against the monarchy. Canada began as little more than a corporate holding of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the personal domain of the British crown. Little has changed in nearly a 150 years of history. We are now the personal holding of a number of transnational corporations and Parliament still governs, essentially, by decree. We have symbolic votes every few years and in the meantime we sit with our collective thumbs up our collective anal sphincters.

Yet we somehow have this popular conception of Canada as a benevolent, utopian, northern wonderland. This is a country steeped in blood and violence, against both its own citizens and the peoples of far flung nations.

To begin with, there is the obvious extermination and ongoing persecution of the Native Peoples of “Canada.” Many, quite literally, live in Third World conditions on reserves where there is little or no running water, electricity or most any other basic amenities. Meanwhile, the bourgeoisie Canadian establishment is busily attempting to turn their ancestral lands into Golf Courses. And where extermination and exploitation have failed, cooption has been the watchword. Hence, the token Native “themes” during the Olympics, “power-sharing” agreements with certain Nations and the “marketization” of traditional cultures. The veneer of culture is preserved in the form of totem poles and postcards, while every significant feature of their culture is eradicated or banned.

It is no accident of history that the Canadian state attempted to ban the traditional potlatch, in part, because this bizarre habit of sharing things was a clear affront to the capitalist market system which was tightening its grip on the land. Nor is it an accident that the last Residential Schools, an experiment in cultural genocide, remained opened until the late 1980s.

While the Americans openly waged war and genocide against their Native Peoples, Canada did so only marginally more covertly. The effects were largely the same, however.  A similar fate awaited both Chinese and Indo-Canadians, who had been brought over in the thousands to work on the railroads as slave-like labour. The Canadian government actively recruited these people for exploitation and in turn targeted them for discrimination with all manner of racist legislation and policing.

After 9/11 there was a great deal of controversy surrounding Canada’s new anti-terrorism legislation. The controversy was misguided as critics seemed to be under the impression that these impositions on our civil liberties were somehow new. Even a cursory glance at the Canadian approach to civil liberties will demonstrate a history of violations.

The Boer War is generally regarded as Canada’s first “foreign war.” It is also, however, regarded as the first time that an entire nation of peoples, the Boers in this case, had been targeted for internment (i.e. placement in concentration camps). The British Army set up an extensive network of concentration camps, originally “refugee camps,” which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Boer civilians. Predominantly Anglo Canadian soldiers actively participated in these pogroms.

During both World War I and II, the Canadian government set up dozens of internment camps on Canadian soil. Thousands of Austro-Hungarian, German and later Japanese Canadians were interred in these camps, their rights denied, their property confiscated. After the war(s), they were released into a hostile climate, destitute and violated. Apologies and restitutions would not be forthcoming for decades and many are still waiting.

In October of 1970, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act to tackle the so-called “October Crisis” in response to the kidnapping of a British trade minister and Quebec cabinet minister by a Quebec sovereignist group calling themselves the “Front de libération du Québec” (FLQ).  During the period in which the Act was invoked, Justice Minister John Turner claimed that 497 people had been arrested, 435 of whom had been released by February of  1971 with no charges, 62 were charged, and 32 had been charged with offenses of a more serious nature. With tanks in the streets of Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec, the Canadian state once again went fishing. Hundreds arrested, thousands harassed to capture a handful of suspected terrorists.

Since then, the modern Canadian approach to anti-terrorism has been marked by the outsourcing of torture, the illegal deportation of citizens to foreign prisons and a generally racist and two-tiered approach Canadian citizenship. Gods help you if you are a Canadian of colour stranded abroad. In the meantime, Canada has actively participated in the toppling of democratic regimes (Haiti) and in numerous imperial occupations (primarily Afghanistan, “merely” a supporting role in Iraq).

Canadian Democracy?

This has been a lengthy piece. Much has been skimmed over, still other topics ignored all together. All of this, however, is to make one very simple point: we do not actually live in a functioning, democratic state. We live in an oligarchic state which engages in a ritualized, symbolic process of electioneering once every few years, giving its citizens the illusions of democratic norms and actual citizen power. In practice, as the current government has shown, we have a very tenuous grip on anything remotely “democratic” in this country.

There is little to be said, I believe, for Canadian democracy. When speaking of Canadian politics it is more proper to speak of a Canadian regime, one that has for over a hundred years been involved in a war against its own citizens, and the citizens of foreign nations, often as a hand-maiden to still more powerful empires.

Events like the ones which took place in Toronto over the past weekend are a far more accurate representation of what people power looks like: necessarily in conflict with the state in capital. We are free only when we oppose, confront and eradicate these institutions and systems. The state and capitalism do not represent us, they do no protect us: they enslave us. And the institution of slavery, as French activist and author Yves Fremion has written, is perhaps unique in history in that it seemingly exists for no other reason than to be abolished.

• July 1, 2010 -- A Better World is Needed: The oh-so ‘Canadian’ style of dissent (8)
• June 26, 2010 -- Protecting the people elected to do the peoples’ work from the people who want them to do their work (3)

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As Toronto prepares to host the G20 Summit in a few days time, the media has been abuzz once more with the salacious prospect of street clashes between black-clad anarchists and riot police. The notorious “Black Bloc” has been presented as some sort of international, traveling cabal of professional provocateurs who have migrated, en masse, from the streets of Athens to the streets of Vancouver and now Toronto. As the mainstream media cannot even present a semblance of balanced coverage of the ongoing apartheid regime in occupied Palestine, or the occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq, it seems pointless to hold our breath for anything akin to a rational analysis of the growing anarchist movement across the globe; what they stand for, what they want. As such, this task falls to one such as I.

To that end, some brief remarks:

On Understanding

A frequent refrain from the uninformed, upon hearing of an anarchist gathering or a rally is twofold: who are these lunatics who want to bring in a dog-eat-dog world of chaos and violence? And secondly, I thought anarchists were against organization? How could they possibly organize anything? These aren’t real anarchists; real anarchists are long bearded savages who speak in tongues. This statement is usually followed by a smug cacophony of bellicose laughter.

While these are all very much nuanced observations they all suffer from one, significant, collective flaw: they’re absolutely moronic. One can certainly forgive ignorance of a given political phenomenon, but to use one’s ignorance as a truncheon and to, in turn, assert this ignorance as fact (i.e. “real anarchists don’t organize anything, real anarchists eat children and raw chicken livers!”) is inexcusable. Then again, this is the general “style” of modern media culture as a whole so one need hardly be surprised. Nor is this the first time that anarchists have been the victims of drummed up media hysterias—the 1890s, 1920s and 1930s were noted for their “Red Scares” which included, of course, the spectre of the (usually European/foreign) anarchist in North America in particular.

Over a hundred years have passed since that original hysterical onslaught, and yet few in the media have sought fit to do much research beyond the crass stereotypes that were established during that Gilded Age. As anarchist ideas and ideals are finding an ever wider audience, these “analysts” and “reporters” continue to rely on hackneyed caricatures and straw-men arguments to buttress their various accounts. Lost in this repetitive drone, however, is the simple truth that one must understand before they can judge, one way or another.

Whether one agrees, for instance, with the policy of the current BC government on, say, public education or on the proposed Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), one must understand their arguments on their own terms. What do the Liberals think they are accomplishing? What do they view as their own objectives and their own principles? Only then can we begin to debate whether or not these are sound or unsound public policies. The same method, however, applies to any political phenomenon—from establishment political parties to Islamic fundamentalist militias to, yes, even the anarchist movement.

Understanding Anarchism

So, what do anarchists believe themselves?

At this juncture I could quote any number of rather eloquent anarchist theorists to explain the anarchist creed to the uninitiated but for the sake of brevity let me use merely the words of the anthropologist David Graeber, who describes the anarchist philosophy as being one which simply insists on “autonomy, voluntary association, self-organization, mutual aid, [and] direct democracy.” The term anarchism itself comes from the Greek anarchos, meaning “without rulers.” Thus, when anarchists speak of anarchy they do not speak of chaos or anomie as is popularly understood but rather of a social order based on true freedom and mutual respect, not authority and hierarchy. The famous circle-A symbol often associated with the movement signifies precisely this: “anarchy is order” as Proudhon put it.

In short, anarchists emphasize independent, voluntary decision making, organized directly by individuals and communities themselves for the common benefit of all therein, with power being devolved to the lowest possible atom of these societies so that each may have a say in directing their own life, and the direction of their broader community. In light of all this, anarchists are avowed anti-capitalists and anti-statists—viewing both systems as fundamentally authoritarian and exploitative.

As such, anarchists have historically been concerned far more with practice than they have been with any supposed ideological orthodoxy. Anarchist methods of organization can be seen in everything from the indigenous band council of the Americas to the reclaimed factories movement in Argentina. Most of the contemporary anti-globalization movement has been profoundly influenced by anarchist ideas and tactics even if only a fraction of the membership might overtly identify as “anarchist” as such. We’re not the jealous type: what we care about is results, not labels. Hence the motto: “anarchists make better lovers!”

Prominent historical and contemporary anarchists have included the likes of Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Emiliano Zapata, Lucy Parsons, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, William Godwin, Oscar Wilde, George Woodcock and many others. Individuals such as Helen Keller and Mahatma Gandhi, amongst other notable figures, never expressed themselves as anarchists, per se, but their actions and own ideas closely followed the shape of the anarchist philosophical and practical framework, leading many anarchists to embrace them as their own. Aside from these figures, however, anarchists come from all walks of life and in every shape, size, colour and temperament: we are organizers and activists, workers and students, retired and unemployed, artists and academics, lovers and fighters.

Anarchist Terrorism?

It is usually at this point that someone will scoff and proceed to inform us all how, “no, no, what anarchism is really about is terrorism—blowing stuff up! Also possibly mohawks and listening to the Sex Pistols. But mostly terrorism!”

To begin with, there are many anarchists who are, in fact, pacifists and the current has a long-standing tradition within the movement: Leo Tolstoy comes to mind as a prominent example. Nonetheless, there have been many anarchists who have refused to disavow themselves from violence. So, a few points need to be made on this subject.

First, the idea that anarchism is a violent ideology or the most violent ideology out there is a bare faced lie. If we were to take all the people who have ever been, even accidentally, killed by anarchists as compared to the number of people killed every year by nominally democratic states such Canada (to say nothing of the US or Israel!) there would be no comparison whatsoever. This is, furthermore, to say nothing of the violence committed every day by corporations and capitalists around the world. The BP disaster alone has done more damage to the Earth and all its inhabitants over the past month than any anarchist has, could ever have or have wanted to. In short, the capitalist and statist system that dominates our world currently is violent and coercive by its very nature. The same simply cannot be said of anarchism.

It is true that anarchists have, however, participated in violent revolutions and insurrections and it is further true that anarchists have also committed acts of terrorism (usually assassinations of monarchs, Presidents and the sort) in which, unfortunately, innocents have also been hurt and killed. The debate about the use of violence to attain ones ends has been a divisive issue within the movement (and outside of it!). Nonetheless, almost without exception, the major theorists and proponents of anarchism have agreed that individual acts of terrorism, the so called “propaganda of the deed,” accomplishes little. What is necessary is social revolution, mass movement mobilization—not vanguards of enlightened, sacrificial martyrs who will “inspire” the masses through bold acts of heroism and/or stupidity.

As many revolutionaries recognized even during the 19^th century, killing a single monarch or a single capitalist meant little when the issue was not the individuals but the system as a whole. It is why when one looks beyond the bold headlines of young Greeks smashing windows and battling police, we see a movement that has spent decades building an infrastructure of social change: social centers that teach people valuable life skills, including language classes for migrants, libraries, cafes, restaurants, free schools, free medical clinics and most every other resource a functioning community needs. These are the means by which we build “the new society within the shell of the old.”

It is not to say, as many tepid liberal commentators would have us believe, that violence is inherently evil. No, violence is a tool and the critical question is the manner in which it is marshalled. As a local Vancouver activist said during her speech in the post-Olympic “riot” navel gazing, how many of the people who cursed The Bay window smashers also spent their nights toasting and celebrating the Zapatistas? Why is a militant indigenous movement, famous for their identity-concealing masks, celebrated for their resistance to the Mexican state but Canadian or American or Greek anarchists, employing very similar tactics (in fact, far more “peaceful”), shunned? Why is Marcos a romantic icon, but the Black Bloc a spectre of evil? Like the Zapatista mask the Black Bloc is merely a tactic, above all, to protect fellow demonstrators and grows out of a legacy and history of police and state repression. Recent events have done little to dispel the idea that the state, even one as supposedly benevolent as the Canadian one, actively plots against its citizenry. The mask is as much a self-defense mechanism as it is, as with the Zapatistas, a sign of solidarity.

In any case, it is not to say that we cannot disagree on the need or efficacy of violence—quite the contrary, as my preceding comments on the history of this debate should have hopefully illustrated by now.  But let us be honest, as well. The great evils of the modern world (the state and capital) do not, have not and will not accept change. The necessary changes that are required, for instance, to resolve social inequality, to resolve global corporate exploitation, will not be acquiesced to by the ruling classes.

Ask the indigenous peoples of the Americans how their governments dealt with their calls for autonomy. Ask the Argentines or the Chileans how their military juntas dealt with attempts at peaceful change. Ask the Thais how their government dealt with calls for free and fair elections. Ask the Palestinians about Israel’s benevolence.  Ask the Nigerians how BP and Shell have dealt with their calls for a greater share of their country’s oil wealth. Ask the Bolivians how Bechtel dealt with their calls for a greater share of their country’s gas and mineral wealth. Ask any of the world’s peoples, really, how their “elected” state representatives, or unelected corporate and capitalist overlords have dealt with their calls for a better world.

None of this is to suggest that violence, itself, will usher in a better world. In fact, used improperly it will surely bring misery to all involved. What is needed is social mobilization, first and foremost. Only at the point at which such a movement exists (i.e. Bolivia, Thailand…Greece?) does the notion of violence become a legitimate means by which power can be transferred from the few to the many, and divided democratically and directly. Until then, it remains largely useless and dangerous. This conclusion has been one repeated through the ages by almost every serious anarchist theorist who has wrestled with the question of true, radical social change.

Few movements begin violently, and few grow by means of violence. In fact, violence at this juncture predictably stifles growth. But, inevitably, serious revolutionary movements must confront the reality that their opposition will not cede the reins of power quietly. As everyone from George Washington to Comandante Marcos has agreed it is just and reasonable, in the course of struggling for a more equitable order, wherein the “governors” have ceased to enjoyed the confidence and support of the “governed” for the latter to rebel against the former—by any means necessary.

Demanding the Impossible

There is one last objection generally raised against the social order which anarchists advocate. The refrain usually goes something like this: it’s a nice idea but it’ll never work. Human nature won’t allow it. It’s usually the sort of remark made by people who fancied themselves sometime “radicals” but are today little more than office pencil pushers. To justify the betrayal of their own ideals, they seek to implicate you in a broader culture of indifference and apathy.

Emma Goldman spoke to this sentiment in her famed essay What is Anarchy? when she remarked: “Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.” I find no better or more apt words to counter this supposed objection.

We would do well to remember that women, for instance, were never meant to get the vote. Or that the American slaves were never meant to be freed. That apartheid in South Africa would never be abolished, or that the colonialism more broadly would never leave the continent. Education and healthcare were never meant to be free. And workers were never meant to have an eight hour day or the right organize unions. All this and much more were once said to be “impossible.” It was often times made seemingly impossible by the use of great violence on the part of Presidents, generals and tycoons alike. The list of excuses used to permit injustice to continue are long and varied. To paraphrase a famous dictum, however, we might well remark that history is the record of the impossible made real. So it is with us today, those still fighting, still resisting, still organizing.

Some might well argue that “autonomy, voluntary association, self-organization, mutual aid, [and] direct democracy” are an altogether bad idea and not worth pursuing in the first place. Those concerns, however, do not concern us. We no more acknowledge this as a valid argument than those who did and do suggest in many parts of the world today that some peoples are inherently inferior to others, or that some peoples should not be allowed the right to self-determination. These are the slavers and tin-pot dictators of the world and their perspectives are relevant only in so much as they need to be abolished from the face of the Earth and replaced with opportunity and ability for every woman, man and child to live according to their heart’s desires.

In short, we demand only the world.

Conclusion

When the billion dollar circus comes through Toronto, much as it came through Vancouver, there is going to be opposition to it. Had Francis Fukuyama been right, the events we have seen transpire in Athens, Geneva, Seattle, Quebec City, and to a far lesser extent Vancouver and soon Toronto would never have occurred. As he had promised us, the end of history had arrived. Capitalism and the liberal democratic state had triumphed and would shortly homogenize the entirety of the globe. Since then, the global capitalist economy has continued to fail the vast majority of the world’s population, beyond even just this most recent of crises, and yet has continued to be propped up by the coercive arm of the state.

Those black-clad folks in the streets, “kids” as some like to call them though their ages run the line from young to old, are our better selves reflected and resisting. They are what we ought to be. They are what we can be. They are a spectre of a much broader movement, a movement not afraid to defend itself, but above all committed to a better world and actively involved in creating as we speak. They do not make apologies for feeding the hungry any more than they do for confronting those who ensure that these same conditions of hunger, starvation and poverty continue unabated.

Anarchism is sometimes referred to as the “the beautiful idea.” I am of like mind. There is an unbridling beauty in the passion of those who have for hundreds of years continued a struggle against some of the most totalizing forces in history. Those willing can easily discover this beauty but doing so requires an open mind and an open heart—a dangerous proposition for those merchants of closed minds and numbed hearts. Hence the misinformation, hence the caricatures, hence the deception.

I invite you, however, to try to understand us on our own terms and ask yourself then we’re quite the terror we are made out to be. Ask yourself from whom you have more to fear: those inviting you to participate in creation of a world in which we abolish fear, hunger and inequality? Or those who in the name of “protecting” you turn your cities and homes into open-air prisons, who wine and dine while billions live in abject poverty because of their decisions, who murder innocents in the name of democracy but move at every turn to stifle and silence dissent?

See you in the streets, friends.       

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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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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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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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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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“But we know that VANOC is very vigilant about anything related to the Olympics. And you know what? We’re good citizens and if they’ve got an issue with it, fine with us, we’ll stop distributing the flags,” [CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay] said.

via VANOC halts CBC flag giveaway.

1. VANOC felt it was easier to make CBC stop handing out the flags rather than be the “no soup for you” party-poopers they are by accosting everyone entering an Olympic venue and telling them that they can’t bring in an item with a CBC logo on it. Bad PR. They’d end up with garbage cans full of Canadian flags, which I suppose is what happened until they realized they should just make CBC stop handing them out.

2. I don’t know if #1 is true because VANOC, in good soft fascist tradition, refuses journalistic transparency. They didn’t respond to Jane Armstrong’s request for an interview.

3. To be a good citizen, you need to fear VANOC.

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But then Saturday turned violent. But it is really not that simple.

Friday was the Olympics 2010 Welcoming Committee. Saturday was the 2010 Heart Attack, designed to stab the core of global corporate capitalism. While both events are related and orbited the protest convergence happening in Vancouver this week, their goals were quite different.

The Heart Attack was intended to invoke a seizure in the corporate masters who run the world through their well-subsidized politicians, funky psychologically-gripping marketing wing, and places like the World Economic Forum.

So it is not surprising that the Black Bloc anarchists from all over converged on Vancouver to take advantage of a chance to smash windows of Olympic sponsor corporations.

But before everyone gets too comfortable and over-simplifies Saturday’s violence, let’s explore a few things.

1. The open source software movement and virtually all instances of non-profit altruism on the internet are a form of anarchy; one does not have to smash a window to be an anarchist. While anarchy can mean confusion, disorder and chaos, it also means “a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.” You may be surprised that you too agree with at least elements of this form of anarchy. Global corporations and their comprador politicians may repulse you in the same way they repulse the activists and anarchists on the streets on Saturday.
2. Global corporations use the Olympics and their nasty lawyers to secure unprecedented marketing space for their largely crappy products. Have a Coke and a Big Mac, why don’t ya! The Olympics are helping destroy the social fabric of BC through a massive funding shift; the corporations that force the athletes to pimp themselves in order to compete on the world stage are reprehensible. If you have read or seen The Corporation, you understand the psychotic nature of corporations. Do you condone their behaviour here, or here, or here?
3. Various people have been dissecting the meaning of violence after Saturday’s activities. They rightly distinguish between property damage and violence against humans. Corporations are not humans. Their shareholders are, but I would argue that most shareholders have no or virtually no awareness of the social ill their corporation visits upon the world. So we at least need to understand why some argue that there are different kinds of violence. Is it the same kind of violence to throw a newspaper box through the window of The Bay as it is for Coke’s involvement in the murder, kidnapping and torture of union activists in Columbia?
4. If you think the Olympics are for regular people and not the corporate elite, did you see any corporate media reporting on the fence that keeps people away from the Olympic flame? How’s that for disenfranchisement that symbolizes how there are first class citizens with access to the grand Olympic party while the millions of British Columbians who will pay for their party can’t even get close to the torch, which is supposed to symbolize…I don’t know anymore…something idealist?
5. For more disenfranchisement, did you know that leading up to the next municipal election, our anti-social, neoLiberal premier has floated the idea of letting business owners vote in municipal elections? In the premier’s words: “There’s an opportunity to adopt principles of the provincial Election Act including: disclosure, spending limits and other changes that will improve fairness, accountability, transparency and public participation. Perhaps it’s time to restore the voting rights for industrial and business property owners in our communities.” In the same breath that he mentions enhancing accountability and public participation, he wants to let corporations vote along with human beings. What is to stop me from forming an, I don’t know, internet consulting business, paying for a business license in every municipality in and around Vancouver, then voting in future municipal elections all over the lower mainland? If you think democracy should be reserved for real human beings, you may want to actively oppose this drift towards corporations getting even MORE human rights. Can you get a sense of the depth of a threat corporations are to human being culture, society, economics and politics?
6. The Bay has hundreds of years of history oppressing and violating people, complicit and instrumental in European colonization of North America. They happen to be an Olympic sponsor. They also happen to now be owned by NRDC Equity Partners, an American holding company, the great neo-colonial power of Canada [tar sands, anyone?]. You don’t need to wonder why they’re a target of anarchists along with RBC, the main financier of the tar sands devastation.
7. BC Solicitor General Kash Heed waxes ironically on the rule of law: “One of the hallmarks of any civil society is respect for the law. The very laws that protect our right to free speech and the right for peaceful demonstration are at risk when a small group in society think they are above the law.” One way to understand the Heart Attack and the severe opposition to the global corporate elites is to explore the hypocrisy in this statement, from a government known for undermining the rule of law. VANOC is above the law. Its accounting is secret. They are not subject to freedom of information requests. VANOC instructed the provincial government to legislate the striking ambulance paramedics back to work last fall. The IOC is an international organization that is above the laws of all nations. It pays tax to no one, obeys no democratic political constitution or charter. It rejected women’s ski jumping from the Olympics by criteria it derived itself; in doing so, it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The BC courts ruled that this gender-based discrimination is illegal, but that it has no scope of authority over the IOC. The global corporations that fund and steer the IOC on its rampage around the world profit from these violations of the rule of law. How can they be punished or sanctioned? Do we really have the guts to use existing or enhanced legislation to revoke their corporate charters? Here is a longer list of corporate activities that are opposed to the social good. If you oppose the violent methods protesters used on Saturday, how would you prefer to reign in unacceptable corporate behaviour?
8. Kash Heed continued: “The [police] will continue to ensure that athletes and the public are safe from unlawful activity and able to enjoy the Games without concern.” In reviewing the difference between kinds of violence, is it reasonable to equate property crime with threatening athletes? Is that what was actually happening on Saturday?
9. VANOC and corporate greenwashing: consider the realities of climate change staring us in the face, requiring us to act in the next few years to avoid irreparable harm and violence to the livelihood of billions of the people. Examine the real record of environmentalism in the Vancouver Olympics. Put up a few green-only Olympic rings, spew some chatter about carbon offsets, then helicopter snow from Manning Park to Cypress Bowl and conveniently don’t count a variety of dirty energy sources and you’re ok. Since the Olympics has become a monstrous PR campaign anyway, truth takes a backseat to optics and marketing. Where is there corporate accountability?

So regardless of who was doing what on Saturday, criminal behaviour definitely took place. Smashing windows is a crime, but did it serve a larger political purpose? Was that purpose valid or not? Was it civil disobedience for a greater moral good? Are corporations committing crimes against humanity to a degree that we choose not to punish? And if you find the objects being protested on Saturday to be guilty of anything, what steps are you willing to take to reign in their aberrant behaviour if smashing RBC/Bay/McDonald’s windows is not acceptable to you?

And in the end, has the window smashing helped you move to a more informed place about the nature of unacceptable corporate behariour in the world? If so, there has been some social good that has come from the violent behaviour, whether anyone condones it or not.

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VANOC is like the host of a party that you never meet. You have no say in how they plan the party. They answer to no one. They spend all your money, but they won’t tell you how much you have to pay to get out of the party at the end. And once you’re in the party, you have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to get into the rooms where “things” take place. Oh, and the party host drives an SUV: the jokes are going viral about how the Anti-Idling-By-Law-Ignoring VANOC SUVs are causing the elevated temperatures in Vancouver [sorry El Nino] that have melted all the snow on Cypress Mountain.

Why does any of this sound appetizing?

VANOC’s sense of what it takes to build a celebratory community culture is simply deranged. And we have only to follow the Olympic spliff torch as the Governator carries it on Friday.

Over a few hours last night I read of yet another American indie media member harassed at the border trying to get into Canada, the second instance in 4 days and only weeks after Amy Goodman was delayed on her way into Canada. Last night I also read and watched how VANOC security personnel tried to convince a reporter that taking pictures outside a nebulous security perimeter is not allowed.

I know I am a free speech zone, but what about the vague area outside venues? And who’s right? Me and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or VANOC, the IOC, an eager VANOC volunteer and a sanctioned or rogue member of VANOC’s 15,000 member security force?

In contrast to the soft fascism of global corporate Olympic “celebrations” for the rich and famous, we have the Decentralized Dance Party. These community enriching, mobile, public dances reflect what a healthy, vibrant social fabric looks like. You can watch some very well edited compilations of their parties here. I particularly enjoyed the Metrotown mall security having a hard time comprehending the dancers who co-opted the private “common” mall space for a public event, before the party drifted onto the Skytrain and Seabus. Information on their next dance this weekend is here.

There will also be a not-so-spontaneous “Dancing in the Streets” flash mob on Saturday to welcome the world. Despite it taking place in the context of the Olympics, it has the potential to actually be merely social and fully apolitical. I wish them well.

A party should not bankrupt, maim, impoverish or denigrate people or values–whether or not they can attend the party functions. Parties that do that are not for the good of society.

When we endure the Olympics and watch the corporate media and political boosterism of the whole show, we must use this core criteria to determine value: do these activities build community or destroy it?

I have my bias, but I’ll be looking for glimpses of anything positive. I can’t say I’m optimistic, though.

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I have only slightly more ability to tolerate the CBC over corporate media when it comes to promoting the Afghan occupation and how amazingly, incredibly awesome the Olympics are.

But yesterday, they ran this story: Protesters target Olympic torch run. It included this weak bit of journalism:

The protesters said Monday their group had been infiltrated by undercover police and said the infiltrators might try to cause trouble so that uniformed police could crack down.

VANOC admitted they had infiltrated a protest group a few months ago. There was no ruse “tried” at Montebello; there was no “alleged” in the agents provocateurs, especially those carrying rocks. Video footage at Montebello captured the “protestors” being confronted by real, peaceful protesters and then “arrested” by the police. After the video went viral on YouTube, the police admitted to planting agents in the crowd.

I hope CBC Olympic boosterism did not directly lead to this story’s watered down facts.

Connected to an easy ride on scandalous police tactics, the CBC missed some flagrant hypocrisy from the IOC.

When the IOC rejected women’s ski jumping from the Olympics, they violated our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. BC courts, however, rightly recognized they have no jurisdiction over the IOC, which is a wholly unaccountable international organization which answers to no government and will gleefully violate women’s rights in Canada because of whatever policy they hold on which events to include in their games.

Yesterday’s CBC piece, however, neglected to mention that evidence of the IOC’s flagrant disregard for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Instead, they merely wrote this:

“We have to accept protests and there will be some and fine, let’s leave it. We are used to that,” said Gerhard Heiberg, a member of the IOC’s executive board, at a Vancouver news conference Monday.

“For us, it’s not an issue. We accept protest, we accept people protesting,” said IOC president Jacques Rogge.

“This is free, democratic freedom of expression,” Rogge said.

“What we want is no violence and we want the people to respect the laws of the country and then there is no problem.”

It takes a special kind of gold-medal gall for the IOC president to expect protesters to adhere to the laws of the country while his organization itself trampled the very same laws with respect to the female ski jumpers.

I am not surprised by this kind of nonsense from the IOC president, but I have a higher standard for the CBC. We simply cannot let this kind of IOC hypocrisy go unchallenged and we cannot let the CBC play down police use of agents provocateurs.

Our society cannot handle these kind of compromises. The Olympics is bad enough, but we need civil vigilance if we expect to retain the kind of democratic values Jacques Rogge so disingenuously speaks of.

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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.

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But if the sociologists want to examine the mathematics of Olympic distress, here’s my equation from last year. In the spirit of Create Commons, feel free to suggest improvements!

((The Olympics corporate welfare program) + (obscene reductions in government spending for human beings) + (radical and radicalized groups who object to the billions wasted on this spectacle, and what in our culture it has steamrollered) + (sponsors and government groups that flaunt their glee in the faces of those suffering) + (an opportunity to capture attention on a global scale)) x (an unpredictable economic depression [ooops, Great Recession]) = a perfect storm of wariness.

Or if you’d like it less cluttered:

(a + b + c + d + e) * f = g

where,

a = the Olympics corporate welfare program

b = obscene reductions in government spending for human beings

c = radical and radicalized groups who object to the billions wasted on this spectacle, and what in our culture it has steamrollered

d = sponsors and government groups that flaunt their glee in the faces of those suffering

e = an opportunity to capture attention on a global scale

f = an unpredictable economic depression [ooops, Great Recession]

and g = a perfect storm of wariness.

Now, you do the math.

PS…I spent an hour in Grandview Park today. It now seems the black helicopters just live over that park now. But as one friend mentioned, there are enough helicopters that various of them could be living over other spots as well.

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OK, maybe it was partly arrogance that led him to phone it in, but in early December 2008 when he did it before, he ended up announcing the suspension of the legislature by standing outside Rideau Hall being sleeted upon by the weather gods, who were clearly politicizing his actions. Who wants to do that again.

The state of democracy in Canada is in a shambles. The last provincial election in BC in May 2009 saw voter turnout drop below 50%. Oh well.

Voter turnout almost dipped below 40% for the first time in Alberta’s provincial election in 2008.

Last year there were rallies across the country opposing the impending prorogation. This year, Harper waited until the seriously sleepy time between Christmas and new years: pretty crafty. Even Hill-addicted journalists were tweeting from warm climates about the prorogation.

You can read all about the reasons why he pulled this move again all over the place. The Reform/Conservative Party has its reasons about consulting with businesses about the economy and such. There are Afghan torture scandals to avoid, Senate stacking to further, the Olympics alternate universe to embrace, and various other benefits and comparisons to pre-1982 traditions about the ending of legislative sessions.

No matter.

What is clear is that responsible government is no longer a given. Technically, elections legitimize governing bodies to do whatever within their power as they govern. Harper is doing nothing “wrong”. Nor is his apparitional coalition partner, Michael Ignatieff.

The flagrant disregard for public accountability, combined with the public’s inability to demonstrate any serious concern for political integrity means that there needs to be forces that can mobilize people to care about it all.

Those rallies last year were an encouraging sign, but until there is a vehicle to truly convey public will or outrage and to educate people about the dismissiveness of prorogation, we will continue to see politicians demean us–their employers–and justify our cynicism of their integrity.

It’s a vicious circle that leaves them continuing to feel confident that they can get away with whatever they want and our voter turnout will continue to drop.

And while the overt fascism in V For Vendetta is not present in Canada today, the soft fascism of diluted democracy is becoming the norm. It’s no wonder young [and older] people today are avoiding political parties and embracing other political mobilization avenues.

2010 has barely begun. The tragedy of the Olympics and its social, political and economic aftermath has yet to be fully visited upon us. We have a glaring absence of hopeful, inspiring, motivating political leadership in most of the country. We have but a few years to turn 180 degrees to avert climate breakdown and our political systems have never been so impotent in the face of such challenges.

On new year’s day yesterday, some stranger asked me if I thought 2010 would be a good year. I said that if we don’t start off being optimistic, we have no chance at all.

Stephen Harper’s new year’s resolution of avoiding accountability is a rough start. But I begin the year optimistically that we will emerge in 362 days in a better place.

If not, the first year of this pivotal decade will put us even further back from where we need to be.

I can’t stomach that. Can you?

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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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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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Let’s put it on t-shirts to let VANOC know that citizens are in charge in a democracy!

What if we all wore them all around town during the Olympics as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card? Would it be like when I used to hand out copies of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to my grade 9 students upon their arrival in high school, and watch them stroll through life calling bullshit?

Maybe it’s more like an inoculation against the emerging police state.

Read some of the nonsense here: http://tinyurl.com/2010Daphne then go make your t-shirt!

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