tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363738832024-03-13T22:48:30.754-07:00Coyote TimesCoyote Times are times where folks need to be reaching out to each other, seeking solidarity, to collectively deal with the problems of their time, society, and the world in which they live. Because NOT to do so is fraught with greater risk.
Welcome, brothers and sisters.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-42041132380110948472011-04-03T09:29:00.000-07:002011-04-03T09:37:14.181-07:00<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Up Next</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Openinbg Up, A Gaping Vacuum on The Left</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Arial;">In Canadian Politics</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Coyote Times is "essentially", at this point, a one man show, and I am really more a <em>physical </em>than <em>intellectual </em>person. New material here. especially as spring and summer come on, is going to be a tad spotty. (I can only sit on my ass for just so long, and cannot long be a Marat (French Revolutionary) hunkered down day and night writing tracts and agitprop in his garret. I am simply ill suited to it.) Even Tyee where I comment frequently, starts to wear on the patience of my ass from time to time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://thetyee.ca/">http://thetyee.ca/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">That said, it has become clear to me, over this Federal Election, that there really is a great gaping vacuum that is opening up and begging to be filled... on the <em>Serious Left </em>in Canadian politics. I even hear rumblings that the Canadian Action Party (CAP), at least from its recently released programme document reported on CBC News, is or seems aware of that, judging from this document... and may be moving to try and fill it. How successfully, time will tell.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Anyway, more and more clearly this <em>vacuum on the Left</em> exists, and the rest of us had better begin to discuss it, and its possible direction of development etc. soon. Which, give me a day or two to write it, I will attempt to begin to do.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Watch for it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Love, Peace and Revolution</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9Ze-qLqOtqI/TZifqH6toDI/AAAAAAAAAfY/O2Ugy7_IRW4/s1600/captain+canada.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9Ze-qLqOtqI/TZifqH6toDI/AAAAAAAAAfY/O2Ugy7_IRW4/s1600/captain+canada.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Coyote</span></div><br />
<b>More</b> <span class="fullpost"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-90156511346709860842011-03-23T16:16:00.000-07:002011-03-23T17:45:13.136-07:00<div align="center" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div align="center" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #3366ff; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><strong>Crap Shoot Electoral Politics</strong></span></div><div align="center" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: center;"><strong><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">by Coyote</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“</span></strong></div><div align="center" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: center;"><br />
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<blockquote><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><em>"Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by giving you a big welcome to Canada. Let's start up with a compliment. You're here from the second greatest nation on earth. But seriously, your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.”</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Sans";">Taken from a speech Harper gave to a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the right-wing U.S. Council for National Policy… reprinted in the esteemed online rag, The Tyee. I recommend, if you have not already, check out Tyee and read this speech. It is very enlightening. <a href="http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/03/23/StephenHarpersEyes/">http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/03/23/StephenHarpersEyes/</a></span></span></div></blockquote><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Here we are again, in another round of choosing the lesser of Evil political choices, in what passes for “parliamentary democracy” here in suddenly neo-conservative capitalism Canada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while the alternative party choices to Harper’s fascists are “perhaps”, or may <em>seem</em> not quite so extreme in their right wing views as this quote from Harper above, since the late ‘70s, they have all acted more or less the same “in actual power… And the "drift" direction of development of all the parties to capitalism, without exception, has been toward their neo-liberal ideology, less in words than practise.</span></em><br />
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</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> The right wing Blairite NDP, who have themselves sought to be ever more overtly “busines friendly”, code for accepting the neo-liberal economic paradigm's parameters, have largely enabled and gone along with the dismantling of the postwar Social Democratic State of Capitalism, offering token resistance only, or at best working to slow it down. The Greens largely likewise on the dismantling of the Social Democratic State, saying pretty much nothing, have only an offer of “green capitalism” to mitigate “some” against the harm of “endless growth capitalism” upon population growth and environmental degradation. Nonetheless accepting that the endless growth, so much an integral part of the status quo and its casino capitalism, so-called "free market", will nonetheless continue unchallenged. </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Finally then, there is the Liberals who much first introduced this extreme right wing period to us with NAFTA, which ties us closer to Neocon America, to tighter integration into and participation <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in their war plans, in Afghanistan, the shifting of the tax load to the working class (GST) from corporations, and to cuts in social safety net spending. All these so-called “vanguard parties” to capitalism and its bullshit democracy have been, to one degree or another, enablers of its ruling class neo-liberal economic agenda. None have challenged it straight up, and up front, let alone to seriously organize the citizenry against it. (Which will take a serious "revolutionary" party, or preferably "movement".) </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Which describes pretty much, I think, regardless of what the “average Canadian” is currently thinking at this unravelling of their postwar prosperity period world, how at least what remains of a “serious Left” in this country must be seeing the economic and political realities of this sudden late neo-conservative capitalism Canada. At least I just can’t believe it is only I. I know for myself, there is even a certain despair at this retrogressive development going on across not only capitalism in this country, but across the full reach of global capitalism entirely, evidenced by the G20 demonstrations here, Wisconsin and other States in the US, in Greece and elsewhere throughout “advanced western capitalism”.. </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I can’t think, in fact, of one exception that has been left untouched… including Sweden and the other citadels of hereto Social Democracy. All have bent before and effectively submitted, to one degree or another, to the new neo-conservative/fascist wind blowing across the entire capitalist economy and its political institutions, and what has and is happening to the little even that passed for “bourgeois democracy” in the postwar II. Such as which period included waves of anti-communist and anti-socialist hysteria of course, as has placed the “Serious Left” in the decimated condition it is in, and needing to rebuild, in most “advanced” countries… including Canada.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Now, in the lead up to, and as this country finally goes into this federal election, we have the spectacle of Layton, the leader of the NDP, first trying to make a budget peace with the Conservatives, which effectively placed them to the right of the Liberal Party. (Even if they argue it was purely for “tactical” reasons, true or not, the optics were terrible, and has sown even more popular distrust of this Party.) Foreign policy-wise they are virtually deadpan silent, mouthing liberal niceties but raising no serious opposition to the country’s participation in Afghanistan, NAFTA and the Northern Command Agreements which sets the tone for further military integration and dependence. Now, they are fully onboard with the Anglo-American Empire intervention into Libya, while it is more and more fully clear that it is largely a Britain and France grab for the largest “proven” oil reserves in North Africa. (The US may itself also have ambitions of extending its current 1% share of Libya’s oil. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly they have all been silent, including Canada, on the slaughters of civilians in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia etc… the US Empires choice held oil source </span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> and port for its 5th Fleet. Such as is part of the Russian and Chinese claim of what is actually happening.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In any case, the NDP is saying even less of what it stands for or even “optically” indicating what it would do in power than the Liberals.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Liberal MP Ralph Goodale for example, while I don’t have his exact words immediately before me, on CBG News this morning, which I watched, was sounding more and more Left of the NDP… sounding like they were taking advantage of the NDP attempt to place itself to their right, in the early discussions leading to the budget. They are themselves angling for this, what passes for “left social democratic” vote, it sounded very much to me. Judge for yourself, from his Facebook page, which pretty much says the same thing.</span></em></div><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"></span></i><br />
<blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">“The Conservatives are using up every bit of Canada’s financial capacity on three big, risky, expensive projects: </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt -2.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">buying stealth warplanes without even the semblance of decent competition ($30 billion);</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt -2.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">building US-style mega jails ($10 billion); and</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt -2.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">extra corporate tax cuts for the six big banks and other large businesses that have already had their taxes cut by 35% ($6 billion/year). </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The net result is nothing left for families – for education, healthcare, pensions, child care or family caregivers.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The Harper regime is spending 1,000-times more to buy warplanes than they’re investing in helping students get to university or technical school.They’re spending 1,000-times more on jails than on youth crime prevention.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> The Harper regime wasted more on one-day of G-20 extravagance in Toronto last summer than they’ll spend in a whole year to help low-income senior citizens.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 12pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> This is just not good enough. Even more pathetic is the Harper regime’s appalling lack of ethics. “</span></i></div></blockquote><br />
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</div><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">On the surface of it, sounding about where the NDP should be, rather than seeking a budget deal or "understanding" with the Conservatives.</span></em><br />
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<em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The reality is of course, we’ve heard all this shit coming out of all these same “political players” to capitalism before. Meanwhile nothing changes, and our nation and world drains away and slides deeper and deeper into the fascist dead-end we are being led into with no serious existing options or prospects for a different political/economic course. Except for the Conservatives, there is only the sound of a great homogenous "suck" across the landscape. All of which leaves us with the net result of a diminsihed society from the postwar II even, costly blood and treasure draining engagements in the war schemes of The Anglo-American Empire, and the declining wellbeing of the environment and “the people”... as we’ve got.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This is where the Left practise for the near entire postwar period of capitalism, of buying into voting for the Lesser Evil at bullshit ruling class manipulated election times, code for voting NDP, has led. For the brief period of the Social Democratic State, or the Welfare State of Capitalism, as you wish, when capitalism did “</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">seem</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">”, and I would say “</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">was</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">”, by nth degree by degree evolving “</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">in the direction of</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">” a “</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">kind of</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">” State Socialism/Capitalism, there did again “</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">seem</span></em><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">” to be a good rationale for. That rationale however, long ago dissipated, starting in the late 1970s, with the effective movement of all the parties to capitalism, more and more, to the neo-liberal/neocon Right, including the NDP model of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hereto Social Democracy. Its previous vision is now nearly completely compromised... co-opted into full acceptance of the status quo.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The country is being betrayed, by NAFTA and the Northern Command and other economic, military and “security” agreements with the US, into “continental integration” or, more accuarately, absorption into the most extreme and dangerous example of capitalist economic and political conservatism in the advanced capitalist world… the United States of America. And as part of that agenda, we are being step by step “harmonized” economically and socially with them, meaning our hereto Welfare or Social Democratic State is being dismantled, and our citizens thrown into their system of Socialism for the wealthy and Corporations, and the most lean and mean Capitalism for everyone else, certainly the great mass of the working class. </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In my view, as desperately decimated as the “Serious Left” is, in this late stage of capitalist development in Canada, in large part a consequende of all the anti-Left pogroms of our postwar history, it is necessary for it to recognize and come to fully understand, if there is to ever be any hope of its recovery to a new greatness, that this practise of wasting our material and human energy resources on a Lesser Evil NDP needs to end. It is past time. As relatively minor, perhaps even aged demographically as what remains of The Serious Left might be in this country, it is time at least, for it to begin to agitate and work as best it can, against this chain as ties us and “the people” down, and hampers the creation of a political pressure for any other alternative and more serious progressive development model. </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">For myself, I will not give any money donations to the NDP, or any other party to capitalism. And such energies as I still have, I will not squander away on them either. Nor any of the other old vanguard parties of The Left still wed to now ancient notions of revolutions from another time… for all their historical lesson value. Nor will I vote for them. </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">And if that means that I will not vote at all… so be it.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I will, however, do everything I can for the creation of a movement or movements of defense, agitation, and the street challenging power of “the people”… the great mass of the working class. I will do everything I can to contribute to the building of a mass movement and organization of the people, to transform society away from capitalism, and in the direction of a more truly democratic, co-operative and egalitarian economy and larger political society. </span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">But as for voting any further for what is, and the people who speak for it… it holds absolutely nothing, not even hope for me. Not any longer.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><em><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Sans"; font-style: normal; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">I will no longer play Crap Shoot Politics with The System’s players.</span></em></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><strong><u>Next:</u></strong> Towards a Serious Left Political Programme Development for Canada.</span></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iWmIbpq4BlU/TYp-mQLu9LI/AAAAAAAAAfE/vlLsDQXg-pM/s1600/anti-capitalism-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" r6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iWmIbpq4BlU/TYp-mQLu9LI/AAAAAAAAAfE/vlLsDQXg-pM/s400/anti-capitalism-1.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">build </span></b><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">the </span></b><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">movement </span></b><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">of the people...</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>More</b> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-86077084710791399522011-03-22T09:23:00.000-07:002011-03-22T09:23:06.014-07:00<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Crap Shoot Politics</strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-size: large;">Next: To Vote or</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Not to Vote _ the coming </span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">federal election.</span></strong></div><br />
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</div><div align="justify">Unfortunately, the country is heading into a federal election at a time when its very independent and progressive existence has never been more threated, and when it is fully engage under conservative/fascist leadership in the imperial war schemes of what was a dominant US Empire, now evolving into a broader Anglo-American Empire. This latter which, like the Old US Empire now near terminally enfeebled, is seeking a new alliance basis to continue the old Western Colonial domination of the world... especially the Middle East. </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">And in this coming federal election, we have the spectacle of all the vanguard parties to capitalism in Canada, virtually without exception, competing with each other to see who can be more Right, without "overly" losing their traditional bases in the populace, and all effectively committed to this new rising Anglo-American Empire global push. Particularly, it increasingly seems, Social Democracy manifested as the NDP in this country, is evidencing as much of a desire, be it for opportunist political expediency or whatever, to co-operate/work with the Conservatives as the Liberals. Indeed it has now almost entirely abandoned its positions on the Left, and planted its feet firmly on the Right side of the "business friendly" spectrum.</div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Those of us on the Left who see and understand what is going on here, perhaps to here having at least felt we could hold our noses and vote NDP, as the lesser of all the evils... what are we to do? Should we continue to vote NDP, even while they seem to have abandoned near all of their progressive instincts, and are coming out more and more effectively supporting, at least "going along with" this rise of the most aggressive fascist tendency within capitalism in the entire post WWII in this country? </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">OR, is it finally time to abandon this collaborative "going along with" the NDP, and the Greens who have proven themselves fundamentally no better, and husband our precious remaining manpower and other resources in the building of an alternative option? </div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Which questions I will begin to attempt to address in my next article here on <span style="color: red;">Coyote Times.</span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify">Watch for it, and express your own views.</div><div align="justify"><br />
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</div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red;">Peace, Love and Revolution </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="color: red;">Coyote</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-73696490786097228012011-03-21T09:46:00.000-07:002011-03-21T11:53:37.585-07:00<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qKC60Vg0UEc/TYd_NKwhJTI/AAAAAAAAAew/ZAFBLZQuGLs/s1600/Chinook+Snow+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qKC60Vg0UEc/TYd_NKwhJTI/AAAAAAAAAew/ZAFBLZQuGLs/s400/Chinook+Snow+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chinook In Winter</span></strong></td></tr>
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: green; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;"><strong>Early Morning Feeding</strong></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">by Coyote</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Rude awoken into the cold still dark, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Winter Solstice morn, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">From where I was gripped firm my wife’s warm cheeks, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">To be set here on the new fallen snow, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Still in mournful shock, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">My breath clouds becoming beard icicles, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">My cheeks puckered like taught crumpled parchment. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">I am one with leafless limbed ash grey trees, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Chiselled from hoarfrost, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Reached out to me as though they are in pain, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Like frozen synapses in mid writhing, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Lost their connection. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">To the life giving force of the Spring sun, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">To which they still reach, long and aspire. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">And there amidst the rising morning fog, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">As it were their sea, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Exhausting impatient puffs of white smoke, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Chinook insists with his hoof in the snow, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">That I heed right now, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">His priority in all things on earth, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">As might tend to distract my attention. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Which makes me cranky.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">“Ya buggers you and that Thoroughbred skanky , </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">If knew could be over that fence and blown.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">To starve down to bone, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon the dry grass ‘neath that foot of snow, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Or the bark and rot of the fallen low.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Ah, smarter than that. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">“We’d rather delight in the irony, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Of your pathetic hubris slavery.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They say in one voice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Upon which we glare each at the other, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shared hostile affection brother to brother. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">They are my Horses.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">“Neigh!” they quick counter. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">“You are but our slave poor human flounder, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">For so long as you learn and ‘wise behave. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Feed us then go knave!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Even Barn Cat upon the hitching rail, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">As well waits my service and flicks her tail, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Showing her askance, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">And shuns my hand with not so much a glance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She will not pacify me either one small fave. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">“The barn now!” she mews. “You’re also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> slave.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><date day="24" month="12" year="2010"><span style="color: green; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Dec. 24, 2010</span></date><span style="color: green; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 49.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><strong> More</strong> <span class="fullpost"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-81222386487751287772011-03-16T16:27:00.000-07:002011-03-17T09:40:52.537-07:00<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #c27ba0; font-size: large;">The Military We Really Need</span></b><br />
<strong><span style="color: black;">The final installment.</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-WBtVO8DpN4U/TX_zYfLQZDI/AAAAAAAAAeE/R3X1bKt2fw4/s1600/soldier+in+camouflage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" q6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-WBtVO8DpN4U/TX_zYfLQZDI/AAAAAAAAAeE/R3X1bKt2fw4/s400/soldier+in+camouflage.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TEJrHCteI2Y/TX_lKGWndoI/AAAAAAAAAeA/RtWI-tr48ko/s1600/smile14.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>First, I'm just a citizen, not an expert. I have "some" living experience familiarity with the military, especially the Navy, less the Army, and the Airforce only from a distance. (My Dad, who became a small plane pilot late in life, always had a special interest in the RCAF and fighter planes.) Though I definitely, from the evidence of living it for some years, and personal contact, do not believe that all the Commanders General/ officer corp know a "great deal" better than myself. (Which was essentially the problem I had in the military :-) That said, in any case, the citizenry needs to attempt to make "logic sense" of this issue, re the kind of military the country needs... IF we are to pay for it, as we will, and it is to be of a type we actually need in the "national interest". What you want, I suggest, is NOT what we have; a military that is much dependant upon and under the control of the US Empire "national interest", in controlling foreign lands for their own imperial purposes. (However they dress it up, or attempt to hide it behind layers upon layers of bullshit.)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">And the kind of military forces you need is, by and large, to my mind and experience, determined by the operating vision you have of the country... of Canada. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><ul><li><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Are you subservient to another country, being in fact, however much you idealize it, put lipstick on it, or never speak of it? In which case, if true, admitted or not, your country is the more likely to be engaged by the dominant country, in fighting foreign wars with it, or acting as a kind of "diplomatic surrogate", acting as an "enabler" in relations with third party countries. Especially if the country you follow about, not unlike a puppy dog in my service experience, is such as the US, which has extensive "foreign" interests it occupies and/or otherwise controls through a system of foreign military bases etc.</div></li>
<li><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Or are you, in fact, a truly independent country... with potential enemies near or/and far, but concerned <em>purely</em> with the security of your own borders, lands and resources? In which case you have no imperial ambitions or extensive foreign "assets" that you feel you must "protect/control", within the country of another? If true, one can assume you have an operating foreign policy that starts from the premise of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. It is up to other people and countries to resolve their own problems, as we seek of ours. Period. Which does not mean that one may not have a view of these matters, express them, or even choose to do what one can, short of direct military intervention to effect an "indirect" influence. But always short of direct, especially military interference within the affairs and lands of another people and country. (Again, one of the pivots of your foreign policy is, it is up to all national peoples to resolve their own internal affairs.)</div></li>
</ul><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">While there are doubtless many other particulars that go into determining the kind of military you need or have, these are the two broad starting points, in my view. Which, if true as I say they are, places this country into the first category, by all logical reckoning. For the legal and empirical evidence says that our current civilian governance and military command commitments in agreements, constant joint exercises, integrated command structures, equipment and parts dependencies, and or engagement in foreign conflict zones and other service with and at the behest of the US Empire, clearly places us so. Ours is ipso facto a subservient country, much owned and or controlled economically by foreign, largely US corporate interests (but others as well), and sharing the same essential foreign policies with it. Our military culture reflects that reality. Of which reality, most Canadians are pretty much well aware... if not knowing what to do about it.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Now some will and do defend this, and think it is the way it should be. I understand that. Especially powerful interests within capitalism in this country, and on the political Right, who see their, and the country's interest precisely as a hewer of wood and drawer of water for the US, and being an ally of it abroad, militarily and broadly in all other contexts. While a long line of Liberal governments, with the brief exception perhaps of the Trudeau period, were as well a party to this "quasi-colonial" stamp on the country, in my read and experience of the historical record, it is in the process of being fully sealed and delivered by the Harperite, Conservative/Fascists now. We are increasingly fully engaged as an adjunct to the US Empire. The die, economically and militarily, is cast.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">But clearly I advocate for the second option above: A fully independent country, that takes its borders seriously, North, East, West AND South, owns, controls and husbands its own lands and resources in first, the interests of its own people and their fully rounded national economic development. They make, or should in my view, the "stuff" they need for themselves and for the purpose of being self-reliant fully as much as possible. THEN "possibly" trading "some" of its resources for what others can do more prudently. In this latter, the interests of the people, their needs and that of their homeland being considered first.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><strong>The Vision and The Military Need</strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-pZwBDhWWqLo/TYDj1qUBucI/AAAAAAAAAeU/4A5XGhtNboE/s1600/HMCS+Corner+Brook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-pZwBDhWWqLo/TYDj1qUBucI/AAAAAAAAAeU/4A5XGhtNboE/s1600/HMCS+Corner+Brook.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Canada's submarine, HMCS Corner Brook loading politicians</strong><br />
<strong>during recent "sovereignty assertion" manoeuvres in our North. </strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">So, clearly I advocate for a vision of the fullest sovereignty and independence for the country... over our territory, airspace, and economic resources... raw materials, plant and equipment. And I do this from the perspective that what we, in fact have, is something a great deal less than this... more a territorial, resource and military "quasi-colonial" adjunct of the United States. This dependency, I say, hampers the country's "all rounded" economic development and decision making, ties it via blood and treasure to engagement in the foreign wars of an "imperial other", that majorly serves its own interests and not those of this country. Which is the product of and leads to economic and military agreements such as are already in place and being contemplated further. (NAFTA, Norther Command Agreements etc) Which additionally, at the very least, conclusively jeopardizes the fullest territorial, economic, military and political sovereignty of this country. Indeed it has already created a condition of "quasi-colonial" dependence and obedience to the diktats of the US Empire.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">But speaking specifically militarily here, to achieve and secure this new vision I advocate, we need a military as well with a quite different vision of the country and itself, a quite different cultural ethos, organized and trained differently for a quite different mission from that which is its present. For example, my friend and co-writer here, Koot Coot, has observed and posed the question elsewhere on <span style="background-color: white; color: red;">Coyote Times<span style="color: black;">:</span></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="text-align: justify;">...the inappropriateness of the F-35 stealth attack fighters that the "Harper Government" wants to spend billions on. I can't understand why the opposition focuses ONLY on the expense when the impracticality and unsuitability for Canadian needs is so much more relevant in my mind and a deal killer right there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> The F-35s are designed specifically for attacking defended air space with the assistance of a mother ship to provide navigation and targeting support. Thus they seem only useful to a country planning on invading other developed countries with sophisticated air defenses (ala "Shock and Awe" over Baghdad).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> For more Canadian uses like patrolling the Arctic they are not so useful due to limited range (due to limited fuel capacity, they also have to be refueled enroute to almost anywhere either by air or landing and fueling). Not handy for protecting Canadian sovereignty in the North.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> They are also a single engine aircraft, again not the most dependable configuration for a patrol aircraft patrolling the vast wilderness of the Canadian North.</div></blockquote><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Which is exactly the kind of eye that needs to be turned to the Canadian Forces, given this different vision of the social, economic and political direction in which this country needs to develop, IF the object is a fully sovereign/independent Canada, friendly to all but beholden to none. (And my friend Koot Coot started out in the US, coming to Canada as a young man.) The threats that exist to this country, its territorial, airspace, resources, economic and political integrity are not found far off in the Middle East, or even Kosovo. Those were and are European and US Empire agendas. The threats described to this country exist, fortunately/unfortunately, much closer to home; within those who would sell the country off, and externally, again much closer to home, in the persons of those who covet our vast resource richness, much already own and control our economy, has historically had a"contingency plan" in place for invading this country, and now under recent Northern Command agreements has the jointly agreed "right" to do so . </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1691">http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1691</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-XRaTQGsGvwg/TYELwOZ-eXI/AAAAAAAAAeg/M14vklmGlWI/s1600/Chinook+Helicopter+Lifting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" r6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-XRaTQGsGvwg/TYELwOZ-eXI/AAAAAAAAAeg/M14vklmGlWI/s400/Chinook+Helicopter+Lifting.jpg" width="321" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>US made Chinook CH-47 Helicopter of which Canada plans to purchase 15</strong>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div align="center" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sovpAA2JQxI/TYEKnNhtlxI/AAAAAAAAAec/A-VpJ6girsw/s1600/Russian+Mi-28+combat+heli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" r6="true" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sovpAA2JQxI/TYEKnNhtlxI/AAAAAAAAAec/A-VpJ6girsw/s400/Russian+Mi-28+combat+heli.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Russian Mi 28 "Combat Helicopter"</strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">It is not the only threat to the territorial, economic and political integrity of this country for sure... only the most serious. We have such other threats as a consequence of illegal activity and attempts to enter the country off our West coast, fisheries issues, a similar threat to that of our southern border along the "northwest passage" of our North, from Russia and other, including the US again (They are everywhere about us.) Likewise there is a need to monitor and control the immediate skies about our entire perimeter.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2009/02/27/f-arctic-sovereignty.html">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2009/02/27/f-arctic-sovereignty.html</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">We have enough immediate threats to our territory, people and resources here, close to home, to claim our attention, military assets and dollar resources such as we can afford for this task, without frittering it away by the billions fighting wars in far off lands, certainly for or as a surrogate to one of the major threats to the sovereignty of this country... the US Empire that has long coveted us itself. Rather than troops being trained to fight "in place" or "set" battles alongside the US Empire forces, entering made up impoverished Afghan villages on the Canadian prairies, for example, we need an emphasis on light infantry forces trained to fight a more "Ranger" or "guerrilla" style of war. A war that is of greater likelihood and consequence to be fought on our own diverse territories, against what is the more likely, hopefully never occurring, a superior ground and air force of much greater numbers and better equipped than we. <br />
<br />
Which is by far a more likely scenario nonetheless, much closer to home. Such as say, intruding its way across our southern border, or across from Alaska, or even our high north, disputing our sovereignty and/or claiming a "right of invasion" given it under an agreement signed by those who have already betrayed us from within our own parliamentary institutions. Even if some future government, which they might refuse to recognize, removes its signature and abrogates these agreements. I mean, it's not as if the US doesn't have a history of this either.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">In any case, we have been placed in a pickle here.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">But first, for the moment ignoring the politics, we need an Army equipped, trained and in place to fight a more "light infantry", "Ranger" or "guerrilla" style of warfare over an extended period and landscape, much living off the land and the people, up against a significantly superior force in numbers and war toys. (It is though, a potential enemy our military have much trained alongside, and know much about, even intimately. Possessed of such knowledge and experience being far from all a total loss.) And we need, perhaps joint, army and naval bases and a permanent presence in our High North, that has become familiar with the issues of fighting there, as the Russians are, for example, and for constant patrol. (Which, in part, we cannot afford now, because we are squandering our resources fighting the US Empire cause in Afghanistan etc. It is nothing short of criminal.)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Again, we need light and high speed naval ships, designed to "slow down" and worry sea invaders, and do patrol and interdiction along our own extensive shores. A case can likely be made as well for submarines, to assist similar, with even more stealth capacity, and to quietly patrol on station, our northern waters on a constant basis, for extended periods. The operative principle again being, for all our armed forces, direct defense of the homeland on the homeland, as that which shapes our entire defense investment, training, form and style, and the kind of military equipment assets we develop and manufacture "for ourselves". Self reliance, NOT dependence.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Likewise for our airforce, with which I am least familiar, I admit, but that which best defends the homeland, assists the mobility of and covers ground forces across our entire territory, and makes it as light, fast, hit and run as possible. A case may be made for some relatively long range heavy lift and bomber aircraft, but it is light infantry troop carrying helicopters that most seem to have potential to me, for rapid deployment and movement about the regional theatres of operations. It strikes me that in the case of the most real invasion scenario, aircraft dependent on permanent and/or paved airfields, are the most likely to be the least useful and most vulnerable, from the get go. Aircraft that can be used in natural and diverse, less than ideal terrains, seems more appropriate to me. Some ideally dual equipped as gunships.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-cL1x3bDJ7UA/TYDiTinlK1I/AAAAAAAAAeQ/m4hp-T39Np4/s1600/Rangers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" r6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-cL1x3bDJ7UA/TYDiTinlK1I/AAAAAAAAAeQ/m4hp-T39Np4/s400/Rangers.jpg" width="367" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Reserve Unit of Canadian Rangers on</strong><br />
<strong>northern training manoeuvres </strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Light, diverse, self-reliant, rapid deployment and support, hit and run, easily maintained in the field and diverse terrains/conditions for extended periods, are some of the descriptive concepts that best describe what should characterize the military that this country needs, in my view, to best serve our own "national interest". This as opposed to dependant on the eyes, ears and command priorities of "others", or the repair "parts" manufactured by them. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">But again, one's view of our military needs will be shaped by your vision and perceptions of the country's "national interest". Mine is very particular, and only includes the US as preferably a friend and neighbour for sure, but held to a distance for a time, as we sort this all out. Unfortunately, because it is simply part of our geographic, political and economic reality, that they are a potential, even most likely "invasion source". It's their historical record in the world also, again unfortunately, and in this country, Lest We Forget the War of 1812 entirely. And I don't think we should.<br />
<a href="http://www.cryslersfarm.com/battle.htm">http://www.cryslersfarm.com/battle.htm</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jZyAQFfJm-E/TYEOYDsck1I/AAAAAAAAAes/4uIKq_XhHgA/s1600/smile20.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" r6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jZyAQFfJm-E/TYEOYDsck1I/AAAAAAAAAes/4uIKq_XhHgA/s200/smile20.gif" width="181" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><strong>More</strong></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-55127802370334588772011-03-15T16:42:00.000-07:002011-03-15T16:46:40.074-07:00<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #c27ba0; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometime tomorrow, the final installment will be up, in this series about the reality vs the needed vision of the country, Canada, and the reality vs the kind of military this vision needs... In the real world with the real neighbours we have, friendly to all but beholden to no dominant power.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-dbPJJNGcPjM/TX_5KU91GOI/AAAAAAAAAeM/KLT-7bk2Q28/s1600/bees-flowers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="372" q6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-dbPJJNGcPjM/TX_5KU91GOI/AAAAAAAAAeM/KLT-7bk2Q28/s400/bees-flowers.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>More</b> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-74550091957102990552011-03-14T10:11:00.000-07:002011-03-14T10:11:38.841-07:00<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-gHI3wNTRdbI/TX0J19NNy0I/AAAAAAAAAdo/Mk9Jkz5bMNo/s1600/Action+at+Crysler%2527s+Farm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" q6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-gHI3wNTRdbI/TX0J19NNy0I/AAAAAAAAAdo/Mk9Jkz5bMNo/s400/Action+at+Crysler%2527s+Farm.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>War of 1812 (Canada & US) "Climax of Action at Crysler's Farm"</strong><br />
<strong>painted by Adam Sheriff-Scott, photo by J. Gray</strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">Whither Canada's Armed Forces</span> </b><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79;">Second in a series considering the country and its armed forces.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, for a statistics eye view of Canada's militray, check out a Profile of The Canadian Forces, provided by StatsCan at this link:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2008107/pdf/10657-eng.pdf">http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2008107/pdf/10657-eng.pdf</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recently and currently, the Canadian Forces have plans in place, purchased or are purchasing the following. From a CBC News report found here:<br />
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/procurement.html">http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/procurement.html</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>According to news reports and what the military has said to date about its requirements, the purchases are expected to fall into five categories: </em></div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Up to four heavy-lift long-range transport planes to move troops, tanks and entire hospital units halfway around the globe in one shot. Estimated cost: $3 billion.</em></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Up to 17 heavy-lift, mid-range transport planes to replace Canada's aging fleet of Hercules aircraft. Estimated cost: $4.6 billion</em></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>A fleet of between 12 and 15 heavy-lift helicopters to move troops and supplies quickly around war zones. Estimated cost: $4.2 billion.</em></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Three new troop carrier ships. Estimated cost: $2 billion.</em></div></li>
<li><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Up to 1,000 new trucks for the army, likely to be built in Quebec. Estimated cost: $1.1 billion.</em></div></li>
</ul></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Particular notice should be taken of the fact that most of what is involved here, particularly in the aircraft and troop carrier ship procurements, is that they are designed for heavy lift, as the report says, "<em>to move troops, tanks and entire hospital units halfway around the globe in one shot. Estimated cost: $3 billion." </em>Which speaks to the Conservative/Fascist view of our armed forces and their role as, though never said publicly of course, but apparent in the empirical reality and evidence, being an adjunct extension to the US Imperial interest in controlling "faraway lands" around the globe, especially currently the Middle East and oil shipping lanes.<br />
<br />
In short, everything here in these procurements, is complimentary to the actual foreign policy role we are engaged in, of being a virtual extension of global US Imperial policy and interests. By Conservative policy makers, the US interest and ours is seen as one and the same. And we only speak our so-called "policy mind" after they have first spoken theirs, and ours is seldom anything other or less than theirs. Unless we ourselves have a real material national interest in The Gulf and Afghanistan, for example, i.e. there is some empire building material benefit we are to derive in these places for ourselves, we are there merely to serve what I claim; the US Empire interest. We are, in effect, serving as a kind of loyal "colonial military" adjunct, much for example as did say The Ghurka's of Nepal, or troops from colonial India for the British Empire. Though, for sure, the Ghurka's certainly, were an outright integral part of the British Empire Army. On which score they were at least more honest. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10782099">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10782099</a><br />
<br />
Of course, the US and Canada share the North American continent. Like Russia and China share Asia over much of their territory. As such, we are probably destined to have a close kind of relationship with the US, hopefully "friendly", even outside of the current one in which they are the dominant continental power and "supplier of value added finished products" to our being the more or less humble "supplicant", hewers of wood and drawers of water and other resources for The Empire . (<em>The classic "colonial" </em>relationship<em> , in our case, possibly more correctly "quasi-colonial, for at least our "formally" independant Statehood</em> .) Though in ongoing neo-liberal economic and neo-conservative political times. there is a greater dependancy all around on cheap labour "offshore Asian value-added" products... becoming increasingly problematic to both Canada and the US economies.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1ML92C_Zapc/TX1CRc5-FQI/AAAAAAAAAds/YJys0U8ra8k/s1600/Boeing+Globemaster+Heavy+Lift.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" q6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1ML92C_Zapc/TX1CRc5-FQI/AAAAAAAAAds/YJys0U8ra8k/s400/Boeing+Globemaster+Heavy+Lift.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Canada's planned purchase: US manufactured Boeing Globemaster for heavy global reach to serve The US Empire</strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table>So, while we yet retain the "formal" appearance and Britsh Parliamentary trappings etc of independant Statehood from the US, and indeed, with the huge assist of Mother England in 1812 fought successfully to retain it, its critical underpinning, economic independance has long been and is more and more being compromised and made meaningless. Begun under the Liberals and being pushed to new limits under the Harper Conservatives, continental integration measures such as NAFTA and a host of other <em>Security and Prosperity Partnership</em> agreements are in the process of stripping this national independance of any real content. For a Mexican view, this link is some useful:<br />
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<a href="http://www.banderasnews.com/1012/edat-danagabriel28.htm">http://www.banderasnews.com/1012/edat-danagabriel28.htm</a><br />
<br />
And as I've said already in the first part of this article, Canada's military, underlined by the nature of the procurement list above, but especially in training, joint US-Canada military agreements, style, ethos and Command mindset reflects this, what I describe as <em>quasi-colonia</em>l economic and political reality of Canada's position vis a vis the US. We have gone from being such a country and military part of the old British Empire, now a hollow shell, to playing the same essential role for the US Empire, with but the briefest period of intervening actual independance in the immediate postwar II. (As a "maybe", or "kind of".)<br />
<br />
<blockquote><div align="justify"><em>At the outset of US Northern Command in April 2002, Canada accepted the right of the US to deploy US troops on Canadian soil. </em></div><blockquote><div align="justify"><em>"U.S. troops could be deployed to Canada and Canadian troops could cross the border into the United States if the continent was attacked by terrorists who do not respect borders, according to an agreement announced by U.S. and Canadian officials." (Edmonton Sun, 11 September 2002)</em></div></blockquote><div align="justify"><em>With the creation of the BPG in December 2002, a binational "Civil Assistance Plan" was established. The latter described the precise "conditions for deploying U.S. troops in Canada, or vice versa, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack or natural disaster." (quoted in Inside the Army, 5 September 2005).</em></div></blockquote><em> <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6572">http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6572</a></em><br />
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We, Canada, as a country, are in a time and reality place in our relationship with the US Empire, where we very soon have a choice to make, even if only passively so, by our inaction... before it is made for us by the most politically reactionary, pro-corporate and pro-American government that this country has likely ever had... at least not since the Great Depression. The one difference being, that the then Conservative government in Ottawa, of "Iron-Heel" Bennet was British Empire Loyalist. This time around, the Conservative government of Harper's is more US Empire Loyalist. (Though the old British Empire still gets some genuflection and lip service. I need only mention "The Queen", to tease that out of the knee bending blighters.)<br />
<br />
Coming from a particular historical tradition of this country, of submission and loyalty to Empire and "authority", and quiet acceptance of a secondary status, it is not going to be easy. But... and it's a mighty big BUT... if the decision can finally be taken, and the citizenry set in motion to secure and enforce a full "national prolitical and economic independance", it is going, at some point, to need to be backed up by a military that is quite different in training, culture and ethos from what we currently have. And all of that is going to have to begin to be created and built over the course of the struggle itself, to secure the independance of the country, hopefully <em>relatively</em> peacefully at least. <br />
<br />
But we should make no mistake or presumptions on the degree of difficulty and risk. on many, many fronts that it is more than likely to be.<br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: #a64d79;">NEXT in Part III, I will consider an outline of the kind of military we would have already IF we were truly independant and fully dealing with the "national interest". Hence, what we will need when and IF... and the risks.</span></em><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-gZpv2ePK944/TX1SZI8gwHI/AAAAAAAAAdw/iiCp85igK58/s1600/Guerrilla_Warfare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="321" q6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-gZpv2ePK944/TX1SZI8gwHI/AAAAAAAAAdw/iiCp85igK58/s400/Guerrilla_Warfare.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Guerilla Warfare: Picket Duty In Virginia"</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<b>More</b> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-81057269905344831762011-03-13T17:01:00.000-07:002011-03-13T17:22:42.358-07:00<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #c27ba0; font-size: large;">On Screen Tomorrow</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black;">Okay, I am not the most astute seer into the future. What I had thought would be a quick article on Canada's military is already at three in the written already and planning stages. A critique of our military requires a parallel critique of "the nation(s)", Canada. Our military is but an armed reflection of the reality of the country, particularly at least, the State, its political realities and economy. So, in practical terms, it turned out to be impossible to critique one without, and relating it to the other, the military.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tomorrow, my second installment: <em>Whither Canada. </em>And with it, our military.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--BIc6HKqvmc/TX1frBjmZuI/AAAAAAAAAd4/e1fHg-5xOec/s1600/Sudan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--BIc6HKqvmc/TX1frBjmZuI/AAAAAAAAAd4/e1fHg-5xOec/s320/Sudan.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>Love, Peace and Revolution </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">Coyote </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<b> More</b> <span class="fullpost"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-55791557538962662522011-03-11T15:57:00.000-08:002011-03-11T19:17:10.830-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-4cBrRY_ncn4/TXqwTx8cftI/AAAAAAAAAdY/_4p7NXY4_n4/s1600/220px-GuardKandahar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" q6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-4cBrRY_ncn4/TXqwTx8cftI/AAAAAAAAAdY/_4p7NXY4_n4/s400/220px-GuardKandahar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Canada Serving The US Empire Cause In Afghanistan</strong></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #a64d79;">The Canadian Military Considered</span><strong> </strong></span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The Canadian military has probably, across its entire history, most typically been either an outright or quasi "colonial" armed force, than anything fully serving the real, predominant or exclusive "national interest" of Canada. Which is my own, but I think an essentially correct statement. Certainly it was my experience in the Canadian military, not a particularly "in depth" or certainly "glorious" one I'll grant, across a "fair" length of time as first a kid of under 14 yrs in Sea Cadets, in the reserve Regina Rifle Regiment, and finally in the full time then Royal Canadian Navy.<strong> </strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I "served" across two quite distinct periods in time, in the history of the Canadian Forces, both with their particular and unique features no doubt, but both at the same essentially the same in their character. For the greater period of my service, the Canadian Military was steeped in British Military traditions, of heirarchy, dress and "ethos". Indeed it was the tail end period of the British Empire itself, with loyalty to the Queen, Great Britian, and the British Empire still a dominant cultural feature of the entire country, and reflected in the Canadian military as well, of course. And this military fought the wars of Mother England in both the 20th Centuries World Wars, save near the post WWII end of The British Empire, when Britain was basically left alone to fight for and lose its African, Asian and Middle East colonies. After which the British Empire sun that it was said in the day would never set, did in fact.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">During which latter period, the Canadian "quasi colonial" military, reflecting the similar character of the State, was already beginning to "transition" in dress, cultural style and ethos... and loyalty, moving away from the British Motherland, except in the most formal terms, to closer association and wannabe your puppy dog behaviour with the new rising empire of the postwar II age, The US Empire. (<em>Though the brief tenure period of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau did manifest a brief and relatively shallow display of a never fully tolerated, let alone realized "independent" spirit and national and foreign policy display... for which time and content there is still a certain Canadian populace "nostalgia".)</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But by and large still, this country was exhibiting again, that ruling class behaviour stamped upon it across near all of our history from earliest colonial times with Britain, with the noted brief lived exceptions of course, of wanting to be a part of, serve and hold the coat of The Winner at World Domination. With which second place and living vicariously through a "real winner", we were "quite" content. It was there, in our insecurity of place, was our greatest perceived safety and road to economic prosperity... serving another. (<em>Which essential character of our history both civil and military, while essentially true, through the postwar prosperity period that was what I call the Social Democratic State of Capitalism, or the Welfare State, we did somewhat shy in our relative material comfort, from fully serving the New US Empire. While we did fight their "anti-communist" cause in Korea for example, we later served only as their bum-boy "diplomatic" enabler in Vietnam, and throughout their anti-communist subjugation period in Latin America. Though of late, in The Gulf area of Iraq and Iran, and Afghanistan, under both the post-Trudeau Liberals and current Conservative/Fascists, we are back to a more activist role in serving the domination ambitions of the US Empire.</em>)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-rsOXuwAbGZU/TXqxPIqBT0I/AAAAAAAAAdg/MZoDIROgs6E/s1600/canadian-soldiers2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" q6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-rsOXuwAbGZU/TXqxPIqBT0I/AAAAAAAAAdg/MZoDIROgs6E/s400/canadian-soldiers2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And Paying The Price</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And with this quasi-colonial essential history, mindset, and face to the world character of the country, whether others saw it or not, and I think they did, or were just too polite to say so to our face, our military likewise was shaped in large part to serve others primarily... first Britain, and of more recent history, this US Empire. Over the cold war period especially, with our attention directed north towards the Russians, ignoring the quiet takeover of our economy and the growing internal political influence that was in reality coming from the south, our military was increasing involved with and over time effectively being "integrated" into US military command and other structures. Not unlike current Egypt. (<em>Through the DEW line, or Distant Early Warning system in our north, which was to warn of an impending polar attack from the then Soviet Union, that never came of course, later through NORAD, the US dominated Fortress North America military command structure.</em> <em>And over time through joint air, land and sea ventures and exercising,, the scuttling of our own strategic independant military equipment procurement and supply capacity , especially in air defence, which was the Avro Arrow fighter jet, and onward, downward into the ranks and upwards through the officer corp, US perceptions of threats and priorities, our equipment needs and what OUR priorities should be, has seen, I suggest, our entire military culture become effectively Americanized hand in hand with the rest of our State. Which is not to say it is total or complete yet, just pretty much so, the latter through NAFTA and other so-called "continentalist" commitments.)</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of late, because of threats to our land and offshore rights and claims in the North, coming some from the Russians and Europe, but especially the US claim that our previously uncontested sovereignty over the Northwest Passage was now "intenational waters", to which they have a right of uncontested use, we have engaged in some modest northern military exercises to bolster our historic, if not acutally enforced claim. As part of which our State and military sought to organize the Inuit to watch these waters for us. (<em>Seriously</em>.) Despite this need to have a serious military presence and capacity in our own North however, contested mostly by our hereto "friends", we are strategically and tacticly hampered, in fact, militarily enforcement-wise, by our material and cultural integration into serving the military and Empire ambitions and foreign wars of the US. Which we continue to do without much serious or evident questioning. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are still largely a quasi-colonial country, is my analysis conclusion, with a like military capacity that reflects that... pracrically set up, with the culture and military training and other more material capacity to serve a more dominant Imperial power... currently the US Empire. (<em>And which persists despite all the accumulating body of global evidence, and the evidence from within its own borders, that this Empire is already beyond its "Best Before" date... only dangerous, as much to itself as anyone, in its final thrashing death throes.</em>)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>NEXT: </strong>Whither Canada. What kind of a military do we need, now already, and in the future?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-xTyvW4lzdE4/TXqzCKa6LTI/AAAAAAAAAdk/7ZfvkysAXV4/s1600/Trident+Fury+2007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" q6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-xTyvW4lzdE4/TXqzCKa6LTI/AAAAAAAAAdk/7ZfvkysAXV4/s400/Trident+Fury+2007.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d85c6;">Exercise Trident Fury 2007</span></strong><br />
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<div align="justify"><strong><span style="color: red;">See this link re details this Trident Fury Naval Exercise;</span></strong></div><div align="justify"><a href="http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/defencewatch/archive/2009/04/22/trident-fury-on-the-horizon-for-the-canadian-and-u-s-navies.aspx">http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/defencewatch/archive/2009/04/22/trident-fury-on-the-horizon-for-the-canadian-and-u-s-navies.aspx</a></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>M</strong><strong>ore</strong> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-90619803783769151042011-03-11T10:04:00.000-08:002011-03-11T10:04:50.579-08:00<b> </b><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">In The Wings</span></div><div align="justify" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Though I certainly cannot be considered a "military man" per se, as a problem child lad :-) I did spend some considerable time in and around the Canadian military as a cadet, army reservist, and regular navy. So I am not totally lacking in "lower decks" experience militarily. Plus, as a more or less "radical" left-wing political person especially, I have always been aware of the need to likewise be aware of what is going on there in the "enforcement arms" of the Canadian capitalist state . As part of which lifelong study, I have sought to further understand how it all works</span>, and as a "kind of " nationalist as well as an "internationalist", concerned with the interests of my country no less than the world, I have evolved my own critique of the Canadian Military, and a view of what is needed there... in "the national interest".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Which subject I started today, as an article or two for <span style="color: red;">Coyote Times, </span><span style="color: black;">and which hopefully I can have up here for your reading and commenting pleasure, in a day or two. (Though damn! I'm going to have to make bread tomorrow morning. And I've started doing ground work with and riding my young paint horse, to get him ready for hopefully, a summer of backcountry riding.) Anyway, a couple of days for at least my first installment.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Love, Peace, and Revolution </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">Coyote</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-VlA5dJPZbDI/TXpi-9DKFHI/AAAAAAAAAdU/KSl6DujWXMA/s1600/Rifleman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" q6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-VlA5dJPZbDI/TXpi-9DKFHI/AAAAAAAAAdU/KSl6DujWXMA/s200/Rifleman.jpg" width="90" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: left;"><strong>More</strong> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-90723972707321061572011-03-09T09:25:00.000-08:002011-03-09T09:25:00.359-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><b> <span style="color: red;">NOTICE</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am trying a new moderating system, as I quite dislike this advance moderation of everything I've been using to keep spam out. What I'm trying is a system whereby all comments will be posted for one day, after which I will be required to moderate it This will allow everyone to immediately see comments. After which, the trash will be weeded out, what my spam controls don't get... or is simply obnoxious crap with really nothing to say. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And I'm very tolerant of language and different ideas, so long as something useful is actually being said, as contributes to a discussion. Though issues of liability are ever present in the "modern world". <strong>More</strong> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-35223895764266469542011-03-08T10:48:00.000-08:002011-03-09T16:43:37.722-08:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-esyoitr8rZ0/TXZ3LAjmtUI/AAAAAAAAAdE/iKuxlmSHIac/s1600/elephant-libya-gazprom-joins_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" q6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-esyoitr8rZ0/TXZ3LAjmtUI/AAAAAAAAAdE/iKuxlmSHIac/s400/elephant-libya-gazprom-joins_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Coming Shift In Global Power</span></strong></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Around here where I live, spring has finally begun to look like it might actually happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which has kept me busy, preparing for the coming flood of water and mud… especially around my barn, where I keep my now lone horse, and of course, the Princess who actually Rules All, our barn cat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have had so much snow here this year that I’ve had to push as much of it as I can, away from about the barn, to places where it can melt and run elsewhere… hopefully.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">At the same time however, being a lifelong political animal, long tuned in to the larger world outside of my own, I’ve been having some conversations of recent with my friend kwd. And we are agreed, more or less, as much as he and I ever are,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that it is becoming clear that there is more than just a garden variety political crisis in the Middle East, shaping current energy AND food prices. As much as the speculators of Casino Capitalism may be taking advantage of the situation additionally, as is their fear and greed driven wont. Gas prices in particular, driving up as well other energy form prices, have been steadily rising for awhile now anyway, as we are or should by now be aware. And these price rises reflect more real supply problems already taking shape, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>now being exacerbated by real growing demand in especially <country-region><place>China</place></country-region> and <country-region><place>India</place></country-region> at the same time. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">To here, the <country-region><place>US,</place></country-region> which represents about 5% of the world’s population (at least according to recent statements on CNN), itself consumes about 25% of global oil supply. (Apparently 10% of global oil supply alone going to power <country-region><place>US</place></country-region> automobiles.) More, by far, than any other country in the world. Which supply guarantee presumptions are now being challenged by other global consumer ambitions. Hence, rising prices in the face of what is already known, future diminished supply prospects.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">All of which is what really drove US interventions in oil rich Iraq, and in Afghanistan, where the US has long wanted to build an oil pipeline from the northern, again oil rich “stan countries (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc) , across Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea. From there, of course, loaded into tanker “bottoms” bound for the Imperial Motherland.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">These we have known of well enough:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Oil_Pipeline"><span style="color: purple;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Oil_Pipeline</span></a> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">as a good starting point.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Enter a civil war in <country-region><place>Libya</place></country-region>, and a growing revolt of the masses spreading across the entire <place>Middle East</place>. (I well recall at the time of the <country-region><place>US</place></country-region> invasion of <country-region><place>Iraq</place></country-region>, many military analysts, even in the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><country-region><place>US</place></country-region>, predicting that before this was all over… <country-region><place>Afghanistan</place></country-region> and <country-region><place>Iraq</place></country-region>… the entire Middle East and perhaps beyond (Indonesia etc.) would be in flames. How right these predictions are now being proven to be!)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">While the US Empire is not itself currently dependent on <country-region><place>Libya</place></country-region> for any of its oil supply, apparently <place>Europe</place> and <country-region><place>China</place></country-region> certainly are. If this important source of supply gets interrupted for any serious length of time, as a consequence of a prolonged civil war in <country-region><place>Libya</place></country-region>, these parts of the globe will be forced into competition with the <country-region><place>US</place></country-region> in other global oil markets. Hence growing alarm and thoughts of possible further interventions by The Empire into yet another oil rich country in the <place>Middle East</place>. And perhaps additional secret “bedroom thoughts” that if they could covet and control also this oil supply with force of American arms, along with those of <country-region><place>Iraq</place></country-region>, (<country-region><place>Afghanistan</place></country-region> looking less and less likely.), that could be an eventual supply bonus for themselves too. The temptation grows in thoughts of “boots on the ground” and “control of the air”… called “contingency planning”. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6q-X7hawUp0/TXZ3-gn0wtI/AAAAAAAAAdI/v4PMPDkdcmo/s1600/unrest-benghazi-recent-anti-government_s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" q6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-6q-X7hawUp0/TXZ3-gn0wtI/AAAAAAAAAdI/v4PMPDkdcmo/s400/unrest-benghazi-recent-anti-government_s.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Of course, perhaps in anticipation and alarm at this prospect themselves, the British clearly attempted some kind of pre-emptive “probing” strike of their own into Libya, sending in a unit of armed Special Forces (SAS), dressed in Arab civilian garb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly after being secretly installed into the desert in the middle of the night, by helicopter, they were of course caught by Libyan rebel forces. (Whereupon they claimed it was a “diplomatic mission”, but were promptly installed in a ship out of the country by the rebels. When they really deserved to be killed as terrorists or spies.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">Anyway, a major paradigm shift, perhaps the greatest in our lifetimes, at least as great as the collapse of the <place>British Empire</place>, in global economic and political relations is clearly already underway. First, the <place>Middle East</place> IS in revolutionary flames against those regimes that have aided their domination by Western Imperialism, never to again be exactly the same. <country-region><place>US</place></country-region> power, already straining militarily and economically under the cost of Empire, is increasingly evidencing a desire to extricate themselves from their dilemma… even while it has delusional dreams of a further intervention in <country-region><place>Libya</place></country-region>. More and more there is emerging WITHIN the global capitalist system, signs of growing angst and competition for scarce, especially oil energy resources, in part I suggest, evidenced by the British pre-emptive military attempt in Libya, clearly to scout the ground and oil supply issues. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As well, <country-region><place>China</place></country-region> and <country-region><place>Russia</place></country-region> are expressing their own alarm. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: blue;"> Badge of British SAS</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Fm7qt1vNhCk/TXZ40zq5SkI/AAAAAAAAAdM/CpFUQ4wllFw/s1600/324px-Uk-sas_svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Fm7qt1vNhCk/TXZ40zq5SkI/AAAAAAAAAdM/CpFUQ4wllFw/s400/324px-Uk-sas_svg.png" width="290" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">And two elements more than almost any other that have underpinned the “American Dream”, and our own, more than any other, cheap food for their bloated bellies and cheap gas for their gas guzzler SUVs,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are more than in just jeopardy, beginning to rise dramatically and spread alarm amongst their populace. The depth of the shit they are in is becoming ever more evident.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">What we have here are all the ingredients for a major shift in the global economic and political system… and a crisis of extremely threatening proportions, in my view, to capitalism itself, as the impacts get driven and compounded home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That which has underpinned it more than anything else, equal to cheap third world labour at least, itself under threat, but especially cheap oil is beset by supply, and serious and growing competition for that dwindling supply… amongst the US,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Europe, China and India, with concern about the potential for further imperial war interventions, being expressed by the Russians. We have here all the elements for a collapse of the US Empire, of which there are already many signs and issues, but also future global war between virtually all the major players to capitalism themselves.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">We are entering again, into yet another historical time of great danger…. BUT, but also opportunity to make major social and economic changes benefiting masses of the global working classes, out of the possibility of the implosion of the global capitalist economic and military system itself… Which arises out of terminal harm by none other than its own greed driven hand.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">In any case, there is no way of stopping it anyway… if it is as objective and inevitable a process that is underway as I think it is.<br />
<br />
British Journalist witnesses capture of British SAS infiltrators in Libya:<br />
<a href="http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/03/09/birmingham-photographer-on-libya-s-front-line-97319-28303346/">http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/03/09/birmingham-photographer-on-libya-s-front-line-97319-28303346/</a><br />
<br />
What British media are saying on the SAS bungle:<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/06/liam-fox-sas-unit-libya">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/06/liam-fox-sas-unit-libya</a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div><strong> More</strong> <span class="fullpost"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-24503661298713474902011-03-05T11:17:00.000-08:002011-03-05T11:19:30.108-08:00<span style="color: red;">A piece by contributing writer kwd, in response to a business article contained in the Montreal Gazette... quote from below.</span><strong> </strong> <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><br />
<h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"><shape id="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 192pt; width: 192pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="gas-pump" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\User\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.jpg"></imagedata></shape> <span style="color: black;"></span></h1><h1 style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: auto 0cm;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-gq1SaQqoEYY/TXKJVaLI_GI/AAAAAAAAAdA/9JekPtn29i4/s1600/gas-pump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" l6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-gq1SaQqoEYY/TXKJVaLI_GI/AAAAAAAAAdA/9JekPtn29i4/s200/gas-pump.jpg" width="200" /></a> <blockquote style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: black;">Great opportunities </span><span style="color: black;">for </span></blockquote><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><country-region><place><span style="color: black;"> Canada</span></place></country-region><span style="color: black;"> as the </span><span style="color: black;">price of </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: black;"> oil rises</span></div></h1><h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"><blockquote><h1 style="margin: auto 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="name"><span style="color: black;">By L. IAN MACDONALD, Freelance</span></span><span style="color: black;"> </span><date day="28" month="2" year="2011"><span class="timestamp"><span style="color: black;">February 28, 2011</span></span></date><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></h1><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">Read more:</span></span></div></blockquote></h1><h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"><blockquote><span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Great+opportunities+Canada+price+rises/4357760/story.html#ixzz1FkTza2Bb"><span style="color: #003399;"><span style="font-size: small;">http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Great+opportunities+Canada</span></span></a></div></blockquote></h1><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"><blockquote><span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">The price of oil tested $100 last week, and the Canadian dollar rose with it, to two cents above exchange rate parity with the U.S. dollar.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">It's no mystery - the turmoil in oil producing and transporting countries in </span><place><span style="color: black;">North Africa</span></place><span style="color: black;"> and the </span><place><span style="color: black;">Middle East</span></place><span style="color: black;"> is responsible for the $10 surge in oil prices in the last two weeks. And the loonie, as a petro currency, has risen along with it to $1.02 </span><country-region><place><span style="color: black;">U.S.</span></place></country-region><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is all good for the Canadian oil industry, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre></pre></div><pre></pre><pre><span style="font-size: x-small;">“<em>Oil price means opportunities for <country-region><place>Canada</place></country-region></em>”, TC Mar 1.</span></pre></blockquote></blockquote></h1><h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"><blockquote></blockquote></h1><h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"></h1><h1 style="margin: auto 0cm;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Recent events in <place>North Africa</place> and the <place>Middle East</place> may be good news for the Canadian oil industry, however, political unrest is a minor factor behind oil’s recent price surge.</span></h1><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">The truth is, aside from increasing demand, the escalating </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">price of oil is a direct function of three factors: The decline </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">in production from known reserves; the increase in production </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">from newly discovered reserves is less than the rate of decline; </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">and the energy costs in producing a barrel of oil from </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">unconventional sources, such as the tar sands, are considerably </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">higher than the energy costs in producing a barrel of conventional</span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">crude.</span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">It is this latter point that is not well understood by oil-</span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">addicted consumers. The energy costs in conventional production </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">are approximately one fifth the energy costs in tarsands </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">production. So, while <country-region><place>Canada</place></country-region>’s proven reserves may be 175 billion </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">barrels, the tarsands are not a bottomless well of cheap oil. Far </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">from it. And when social and environmental costs of the tarsands </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">are factored in, it is easy to why oil costs are rising.</span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">The oilwells supplying us with cheap crude are drying up, and so </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">should the inkwells supplying cheap excuses; particularly those </span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">that blame raving lunatics and autocrats for the high cost of oil.</span></pre></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><pre></pre></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><strong> More</strong><br />
<h1 class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"> <a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Great+opportunities+Canada+price+rises/4357760/story.html#ixzz1FkTza2Bb"><span style="color: #003399;"><span style="font-size: small;">+price+rises/4357760/story.html#ixzz1FkTza2Bb</span></span></a></span></h1>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-4553746141347113072011-03-01T08:52:00.000-08:002011-03-01T08:52:47.665-08:00<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: purple;"><em>Below here, contributing writer kwd offers his analysis of current events, as a background to speak to the issue of democracy in the future. What are the issues? How is it likely to evolve? An important, I think, contribution to this very important issue and discussion which has only just begun... in such places as the comment threads on Tyee, as well as elsewhere.</em><strong> </strong></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SvZx0slHV1g/TWvYRLm7EGI/AAAAAAAAAc0/AWN3v0KTK0I/s1600/guillotine-3-t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" l6="true" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SvZx0slHV1g/TWvYRLm7EGI/AAAAAAAAAc0/AWN3v0KTK0I/s400/guillotine-3-t.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
</div><strong></strong> <span class="fullpost"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong> <span style="font-size: large;">Redefining Democracy</span></strong></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> written by kwd</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Recent civil unrest and the overthrow of autocratic (dictatorial) governments in a number of Arab countries should be telling those fighting for an egalitarian, compasionate democratic polictical structure that they have a new, very powerful ally: social media. Is anyone listening?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">At no time in history, since the tribal drum, has society had communication tools that allowed the creation of instantaneous, direct, participatory democracy. In the 60s, Marshal McLuhan (“Understanding Media”) foretold today’s events and the conundrum instant communication would<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>present for existing political systems. Apparently very few listened to his message, even fewer understood its evolutionary impact on social discourse.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: purple;"><u>Below</u>: Marshall McLuhan</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Bs7nvTdYznM/TWrl000nuGI/AAAAAAAAAcw/pQIi6cGvgM4/s1600/200px-MarshallMcLuhan.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" l6="true" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Bs7nvTdYznM/TWrl000nuGI/AAAAAAAAAcw/pQIi6cGvgM4/s1600/200px-MarshallMcLuhan.png" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Social media have become very powerful tools. Two recent events made this fact vividly clear. The first was when politicial forces tried to shut down Wikileaks, and the second when the leaders of countries in turmoil tried to shut down the internet in order to quell protest. Fortunately, (for those seeking retribution and change) what these leaders didn’t realize is that it was too little too late: the message was out and there was no turning back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The ‘net’ has become global. Stopping ‘net’ communication in one region will not stop the protests nor will it prevent the message from reaching the rest of the world. (It’s somewhat ironical that the ‘net’ may become an Achilles heel of its rich and powerful profit-seeking promoters.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The reluctance … or inability, if you believe MSM has their hands tied by those that pay for their ink, paper and electricity … of mainstream media to expose corruption and fraud in politics and economics is obvious. Because political power is linked directly to the power of rhetoric, profit driven institutional policies and ideologies can be used to conceal and hide negative social impacts. This gatekeeping means that the means of making political statements and giving credence to those statements is not equally available to all segments of society. Censorship must be concidered a system of oppression and, depending on the means used to limit the voices of dissent, a form of violence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">As the masses come to recognize that MSM are providing only part of the story, that knowledge will guarrantee a surge in the power of social media. The public will place a far greater reliance and trust in media through which they find balance in the messages that shape their future.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">If we believe the ‘net’ has this latent power are we being willfully blind if we cling to the idea that existing governing systems and top-down party politics offer society the best mechanisms for directing social discourse that seeks a common good?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">This awareness does not mean party politics will become obsolete; it won’t. However, what it does mean, and this should now be obvious, is that the direction socio/econo/poltical evolution follows is being determined by demands at the street level, not from the top down. The internet has put power in the hands of those who form the front line in the daily battle for survial: the voter. As we watch the ever-increasing impact of mass rallys, and the forms of government resistance, including the use of lethal force, we are witnessing a role reversal in the ownership of power.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The initiation of discourse on the ‘net’ does not require formal structure, protocol or leaders. But, of even greater importance is understanding which demographic is contributing the most to the discourse and protests. If we pay attention to MSM news broadcasts we see the majority are young folks, those that consider themselves left out of the decision making process: disenfranchised, disillusioned and angry. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-t5AxbkNQiu4/TWvZAS87XTI/AAAAAAAAAc4/Z-EP_mhipu4/s1600/woman+at+pc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-t5AxbkNQiu4/TWvZAS87XTI/AAAAAAAAAc4/Z-EP_mhipu4/s320/woman+at+pc.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Obviously this doesn’t sit well with those that think they have the right to govern; particularly older folks, those that enjoy the benefits of power and control inherent in the structure of current political systems.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">It is unlikely that protestors will address the structural components of the mental frameworks used to build political identity. Without addressing the structural inequalities that offer one group access to social power and other benefits civil, while denying it to others, conflict will not be short lived. The fact that most of those on the streets are politically naïve means building new froms of governance will not be quick or painless.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The conflict we are witnessing is just the start of a change in the way governance will take place; not just in Lybia, Tunisa<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and other Arab nations but also in those countries that consider themselves democractic.The leaders of so-called democratic countries are fooling themselves if they believe otherwise.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">As resource scarcity puts more and more pressure on our ability to lead the lives we’ve become accustomed to, there will be greater demand on existing governance systems. The inability of governments … democratic or otherwise …to meet those demands has become obvious, and we are witnessing the outcome. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">In democratic countries open defiance by the victims of political ‘violence’ is the least common form of resistance. How much pain, oppression and political violence is required before the masses in so-called democratic nations rise up and take to the streets?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><pre wrap=""><blockquote><pre wrap="">Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“The Second Coming”, W. B. Yeats (1919)
</pre></blockquote></pre><pre wrap=""><blockquote></blockquote></pre><pre> </pre><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Ji88vkPr6i8/TWvcMmDZVoI/AAAAAAAAAc8/Ov2np1b_NFo/s1600/Dragon..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Ji88vkPr6i8/TWvcMmDZVoI/AAAAAAAAAc8/Ov2np1b_NFo/s320/Dragon..jpg" width="295" /></a></div><pre wrap=""><strong></strong> </pre><div wrap=""><br />
</div><div wrap=""><strong> More</strong></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Bs7nvTdYznM/TWrl000nuGI/AAAAAAAAAcw/pQIi6cGvgM4/s1600/200px-MarshallMcLuhan.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-32233206486766048812011-02-28T09:44:00.000-08:002011-02-28T09:44:32.649-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><b> <span style="color: purple;">Coming Tomorrow</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Redefining Democracy</em></strong> by contributing writer kwd. About the new social media technologies and their likely influences on the character and content of future democracy. A thought provoking piece of analysis that looks back at, and brings forward into our time, some of the relevant ideas of Canada's own Marshall McLuhan... only now becoming clear in their possibly revolutionary import. <strong>More</strong><strong> <span class="fullpost"></span></strong></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-49257844541711598812011-02-27T08:34:00.000-08:002011-03-09T16:40:31.210-08:00<div align="center"><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B3vFyhqeqO0/TWqXCyw4iWI/AAAAAAAAAcs/_qFj3tmdp_8/s1600/shipwreck-clip-art_412785.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" l6="true" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-B3vFyhqeqO0/TWqXCyw4iWI/AAAAAAAAAcs/_qFj3tmdp_8/s320/shipwreck-clip-art_412785.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The Survivor</strong></span><br />
<strong>Part II</strong></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">But getting down into the earth level soil of the times in the early 80s, where people actually live, and where I have always claimed that this neo-conservative period we are currently living through is the jumping off point from the post WWII prosperity, Social Democratic State of Capitalism period. (In which overly idealized time many people still live delusional, maybe especially many NDPers). <br />
<br />
As the real nature of what was happening in the late 70s to early 80s hit us and many, many others in what still is, this ongoing transitional time in the new "<em>Lean and Mean Capitalism</em>", though Mrs. Coyote and I managed to hold it all more or less together until 1982, when it all unravelled. Then in our early 40s, the Mrs and I, "BOOM!", found ourselves suddenly farming on the historic Douglas Lake Ranch for then owner Chunky Woodward. <strong> (</strong>There were those down in the mud, the blood and the beer events that led to there, of course, but that's another story... not for here.)<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For myself though, I was in a state of... How to describe it? ...It was much like what being in a state of shell shock must be like for battle scarred soldiers. That intertwined with a scarcely controlled rage over the loss of our own place, that presumably only I was aware of, ever threatened to break out into violence. I was not pleased with the people and events that led to our finding ourselves financially broke, there on an extremely isolated part of the Douglas Lake Ranch known as Norfolk. It was a time of great trial for both the Mrs and I. We struggled to adjust, no longer young, our energies sapped, in strange circumstances, working for a Big City capitalist who used the Ranch's 200,000 hectares as a kind of feudal estate, it seemed to us serfs, into which he could periodically fly in, in his private corporate jet, like royalty, to play cowboy with real cowboys. I don't know how it is on Douglas Lake now, but then in 1982, the Ranch had many serf-folks like us, basically "hiding out" like ourselves, from the bailiff and others. <br />
<br />
(Chunky, the Lord of Douglas Lake, many of you will know, now deceased, was the owner of then Woodward's Stores. Which too eventually became a victim of "The Recession" and the collapse of retail consumption that was part of it, as the Recession went on and on. Then, as now, "Recovery" just around the next corner.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I remember well, like it was yesterday, the Mrs and I sitting in the living room of the old frame house that came with the job there on Norfolk, an old cookhouse from the "old days" of big farming crews, pre-big time agricultural mechanization. It was our first winter there. Both of us sat there looking out at the unbelievable world of snow and leafless ash grey trees, with snow that was to the window sills that winter, all white, cold and rather the end of the earth looking. At least that was how it looked in our then state of mind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Suddenly we both looked at each other, neither of us saying aloud, but each of us hearing the other thinking, "What the fuck just happened? How did we get out here in the middle of this strange nowhere... that is not ours.?!"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;"><b>Norfolk Winter Scene</b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Crystal cold the world,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Of ice and new snow,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">With a billowy frosty breath unfurled,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">From hungry cattle moving thick and slow;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Saddened, torpid beasts,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Frozen in stern time,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Soup-line derelicts to a chilly feast,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">There against winter’s tapestry sublime.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">A whining tractor,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Startles into view,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Bearing gifts from the Great Benefactor;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Timothy, Canary and Red Fescue.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">As His serf passes,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">A Sprite’s wand is waved,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">And the mass stage left, noses to asses,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Heel-kick, soft-shoe shuffling off to be saved.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">From the frosty silence</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">of the treeline,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Coyote stares out across</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">that milk white field,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">At now clamouring cattle</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">as they dine.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">He narrows his eyes</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">into thoughts concealed,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Curls his lips into a wry</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">sceptic smile,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">And thus genuflects thereby</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">to man’s style.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Written:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 129.6pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">December 1983</div><br />
Which poem I wrote the second winter after arriving at Douglas Lake. But, I think, gives a feel for the place.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><img alt="western clipart coyote howling" border="0" src="http://www.imajlar.com/free_clipart/western_clipart/western_clipart_coyote_howling.gif" /> Around this same time, at the height of my, lets call, Time of Great Pain, which at times was really quite extreme, early one morning I'm coming out of Norfolk, headed to another part of the ranch, Minnie Lake or some such, to be part of the haying crew working there. I turn the company pickup right at the main road to head in the direction of Home Ranch. Immediately there before me, right in the middle of the road, is this coyote. I slam on the brakes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Initially I'm not even sure what manner of beast it is. It's just a large blur of fur. It is however a coyote. But no ordinary coyote. This one has been severely damaged, that is immediately apparent. I immediately jump to the conclusion that it has either been shot in its hind quarters and rendered paraplegic, or hit by a vehicle, because its hind legs are completely useless. He, or she, has his legs splayed out behind itself, pulling its entire hind quarters along with its front legs only. (Keep in mind, we are in a slow-mo time warp here, where a few seconds is stretched out into only this endless moment.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After us initially looking at each other full in the eyes... I mean our eyes actually locked, so that I could see the full fright of fear in his eyes and he, he had to, have seen the shock in mine. ... he/she, which gender I could not know, smack on my side of the road, suddenly wheels about, using only his front legs and takes off down the dirt road. I mean, just pulling himself along with his front legs, dragging his/her useless hind end, at a clip that a fully sound animal would have moved at the lope.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My first red-neck reaction was, weirdly, that I should kill it and put its out of its misery. Which notion I, happily today, quickly discarded. (Again in this same weird slow-mo state, of what was only surely seconds.) After which I immediately decide that I should nonetheless catch it and get it to some vet help. Though even by then, I'm starting to realize, that whatever happened to this animal, it is now fully healed, and this is the condition of its life. It's moving just too much like it knows exactly what it is doing, is not really in pain, just panic mode to get the hell away from me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It comes to a log rail fence in tall grass at the side of the road, and runs along it in panic mode for a bit. I get out of my pickup and walk towards it... to do what, I didn't really have formulated. I just feel like I should do something. Though I've at some point put my leather gloves on, as some kind of protection presumably, from being bitten. Duh!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Anyway, it looks back at me again and sees me coming, and immediately slithers like a snake between the rails in the fence onto the other side. I run to the fence then, thinking it may have hung itself up, but when I get there, and look over the fence, this critter is nowhere to be seen. It is totally and completely gone.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even after climbing over the fence and combing through the grass for what must have been a half hour, seriously looking for this coyote, I'm forced to conclude it is history... like it was never there. Or if it's hiding, it's where and at a distance I'm not going to find it. I listen intently for the sound of rustling grass. Nothing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Which, over the course of that long work day and after, as and whenever I revisit this critter, and his brief, seconds long appearance into my life, is where I find the moral that saw me through this period. It ain't over 'til its over. Never give up. No matter how bad things may seem, and I have seen this attribute in coyotes many times since... never give up. It's amazing what critters, and we humans can endure and overcome, if we have the will.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now that coyote had really grim circumstances to overcome. Worse than mine. Whether it would have made it through the next winter or not... It would have been tough. But then, maybe it had already survived one or more winters. In any case, none of us is getting out of here alive. But until the Grim Reaper actually reaches down and snatches you into the Void of No Return... <strong>NEVER GIVE UP</strong>.</div><a href="http://www.picturesof.net/pages/091029-191599-433042.html"><img alt="A Farm Tractor - Royalty Free Clipart Picture" border="0" height="84" src="http://www.picturesof.net/_images/A_Farm_Tractor_Royalty_Free_Clipart_Picture_091029-191599-433042.jpg" title="A Farm Tractor - Royalty Free Clipart Picture" width="100" /></a> <img border="0" src="http://www.cowboyclipart.net/graphics/balinghay.gif" /><br />
<br />
<br />
<b> My Brother, The Coyote</b><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">My angry tractor roars across</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">the field,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">The giant vacuum cleaner behind</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">it,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Exposing that which the crop</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">had concealed,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Another link in the chain</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">of the fit.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Wily Bob Coyote slinks out</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">of harms way,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Having observed Power follows</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">a path,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Though sometimes toward him</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">it will ill stray,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">To finish his days as</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">cattle feed chaff.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">His goal,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Is but a mole</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Caught out of its wee hole,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">A mouse,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Far from its house,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">As a petite hors d’oeuvre.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">I lie weary upon my bed this night,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">With my sleeping wife’s soft warmth</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">at my side,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Grateful to be removed from sound and sight,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Of a maelstrom world </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">that has briefly died.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">When suddenly my brother the Coyote,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Sets his sorry cousin Dog</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">to pleading</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">As he cries from the depth of ancient rote,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">An arousing poignant</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">hand out greeting,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Into the still heart of the cold, cold dark.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Answers a joyous</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Choral clarity,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Rending through the black,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Reaching for needed</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Solidarity.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">Written:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">1983</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 144pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-10263694056380880932011-02-26T10:37:00.000-08:002011-02-26T10:37:36.241-08:00<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-YeGxgz4i8eM/TWlGFF68CsI/AAAAAAAAAck/iW7DLVN9vHQ/s1600/howling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><b><span style="color: lime; font-size: large;">Coming Tomorrow</span></b></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Part II of <strong><em>The Survivor. </em></strong>A "kind of" morality tale, in that it has a moral that it tells. It is a twist on your typical social, political and economic analyses. Expect the unexpected. </span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-jaEtFqaE3dc/TWlHnfsB-oI/AAAAAAAAAco/OvJjJSy7Zns/s1600/coyote_colour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" l6="true" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-jaEtFqaE3dc/TWlHnfsB-oI/AAAAAAAAAco/OvJjJSy7Zns/s320/coyote_colour.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-38723301790712680422011-02-25T09:17:00.000-08:002011-02-25T10:29:35.828-08:00 <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-idozPE8I328/TWfh35KpQ0I/AAAAAAAAAcg/ETN2z8s6xSA/s1600/Smash-capitalism.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-idozPE8I328/TWfh35KpQ0I/AAAAAAAAAcg/ETN2z8s6xSA/s320/Smash-capitalism.png" width="161" /></a> <strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Survivor...</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: small;"> a morality tale</span></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Part I</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's the early 80s, some months in advance of the election of the first Neocon to the presidency in the US, and his imposition of Friedmanesque "neo-liberal" economic practise onto what had to there been the postwar period of the Social Democratic State. To augment the outside cash flow subsidy that our family farm required, we went into also a relatively small scale export dependent shingle mill and contract logging operation on private land. Small in the context of the system, but big to us, in terms of its capital and labour intensity... involving taking on a considerable debt load.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I</span><span style="font-size: small;">nterest rates at the time had been "pegged" in the area, if I recall correctly, of about 6-8%. And interest rates had been so pretty much throughout the entire prosperity period of the Social Democratic State of Capitalism... at least pegged for predictable periods. Which we were well able to handle for as far ahead as we could see, had rates more or less held.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> But which was of course, in still the heady days of endless prosperity capitalism that had been to then, throughout the entire postwar, and which I mean everyone had by then come to the conclusion would NEVER end. (Even most of the what had been in the 30s, the "revolutionary left", had fundamentally by then gotten on board with the assumptions of the Social Democratic State and its presumed endless prosperity.)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Suddenly, shortly thereafter, through the corporate media, around the election of Ronald Reagan to the US presidency for the first time, one started to hear of talk that he and his Republicans planned to "free" interest rates and get society back to the "lean and mean discipline" of the "free capitalist market place". Which I remember at the time did catch my attention and cause me some concern, but hell, I was working day and night falling trees, cutting shingle blocks, running them through our mill, and putting together truckload orders for our market in Germany. Everything else in the world was going by in a kind of work intensity haze to produce product and pay the bank. Besides, people wouldn't stand still for that, and it is one thing to talk crazy Right Wing shit like that in an election, and quite another after, in the real world of governance. Right?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Well, we now know of course, that I was wrong. Reagan did get elected, also Margaret Thatcher in England, the first two postwar Neocons pursuing the "neo-liberal" economic theories of "capitalist fundamentalism" being espoused by Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics. What followed was the fast and furious rise of interest rates to previously unseen levels throughout the postwar, again if I remember correctly, getting as high as 20%, and possibly more. Which, to make a long story short, brought about the great economic collapse of the 80s period, and with it, still going on today, the destruction, nth degree by degree, of the great Social Democratic State of capitalism, and the endless prosperity time. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, there were many complex elements that went into the ruling class decision of the time, to take capitalism there of course. One being the great task of rebuilding postwar Europe had been completed, which task had acted to "more or less" smooth out the historical cycles of boom and bust that have always been a part of capitalism, and to especially, enrich us here in North America. Another element, expressed at the time was a right wing concern about "creeping socialism", and still is, which manifest ruling class concerns that the logical conclusion of the line of development the postwar Social Democratic State was on, in fact, led away from Capitalism and in the direction of State managed "Socialism". The claim being that Capitalism was ultimately doomed if it continued to go along with this ongoing building of the Social Democratic State, and its systems of economic intervention and regulation. Which, from their perspective, was true enough, and in my view as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hence, the Social Democratic State had to be stopped and dismantled; including its systems of medical care, unemployment insurance and welfare etc., and its State interventions in the economy, at least in so far as these interventions served the working class masses and their interests in safe work places etc. Instead, it was to be Capitalism as it was historically from the time of the Industrial Revolution, and is in the process of becoming again; socialism for the wealthy and their corporations, and capitalism for everyone else. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><em><strong>The Survivors, Part II, </strong>to follow soon. </em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><strong>More</strong> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-52699804983714352632011-02-22T19:31:00.000-08:002011-02-22T19:31:48.232-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Construction Delays</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">With a medical appointment out of town today, a much beloved horse I just have to part with, to trailer load and move to her new digs tomorrow, along with some volunteer work for the Saddle Club I belong to, there's a bit of delay here getting new material up. That's the weakness of a one man show. But fear not good folks, Thursday is looking clear to do a piece I kind of want to do, on the theme of coyotes and politics, with a little bit of poetry thrown in. A little artsy fartsy, for the likes of me, but... I think you all will find it interesting.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Keep the faith, and you come back now and again. We's here to thunk on human affairs, agitate and entertain, just a tad. 8-D</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Love, Peace and Revolution. </span><strong> </strong></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>More</b> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-17033637374024541582011-02-21T10:03:00.000-08:002011-02-21T11:28:51.162-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><b> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">A Bit of History to Coyote Times</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">First, welcome to <strong><span style="background-color: white; color: red;"><em>Coyote Times<span style="color: black;">. </span></em></span></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This site has over a number of years now, gone through a number of name and other manifestations, and a long period of lying dormant, awaiting my renewed interest. It was first Liberation Voice and then Freedom of Speech.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have gone to this latest title format for a number of reasons. First, because I have long been an admirer of the coyote as a wild critter of two worlds now, urban and rural, in both of which it survives and prospers, and in greater numbers than ever. Which, to me at least, speaks to my many years in both these environments, about equally, and to my long years on the margins, materially and intellectually, and in the political wilderness as a left wing political and philosophical person. And no, I'm not really complaining. That's just life as it has been within certainly North American capitalism since the time of the last Great Depression of the 1930s, and the last great foment and movement of the working class in that time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thereafter there was the Great World War II and the prosperity period of the reconstruction of war destroyed Europe, in which especially North America grew affluent, and on the basis of which, even capitalism went along with the building of the Social Democratic State and its social safety net, and frequent State regulation and interventionism in the economy. During which time, of course, also occurred the great pogrom attacks on "official" Communism and all the Left within capitalism, as well as without as McCarthyism. Which attacks resulted pretty much in the isolation and decimation of the Left numerically and as an influence in all society, especially the trade union movement and the broader working class. All of which was only marginally less in Canada than the US.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The worm has turned again however, as it is cyclically wont to do within capitalism. And driven by individual Big Capitalist greed and the upheavals and distortions of its thinly veiled attempt to establish its full hegemony and imperialist ambition domination over the entire global economy, even the hereto "advanced" Western capitalist economies and socio-political orders have and continue to fall into a period of deepening crises.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As well, and a consequence of, neo-liberal economic policies of undoing the now old Social Democratic State order and seeking to return capitalism back to an imagined more ideal laissez faire capitalism time, before unions and shared working class prosperity, has also acted to destabilize capitalism, both economically within as well as socially.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All of which it seems to me is beginning to work, to once again call back into existence from the political wilderness into which we were driven, the serious, or if you will, revolutionary Left, to once again re-emerge as one of the leading working class forces and influences acting within and on capitalism. Attempts to turn back history, which arise from within the ruling class order, also quite naturally call back into being its old class enemies and political foes, with their different, by now updated and reinvigorated vision of the direction beyond capitalism that society needs to move in the direction of. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Time spent in the political and ideas wilderness, it turns out, echoing it would seem the biblical experience, can be extremely useful. :-) lol</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;"><em>Coyote Times</em> </span><span style="color: black;">is a small, extremely modest attempt to contribute to this process, now struggling to re-establish and re-root itself within current state of affairs capitalism, which the system and the capitalists have themselves created. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As time goes on, the old materials written by Coot and myself will be pushed out and archived... which I will hang onto, because it is part of the history of this site.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Again, welcome.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <strong>More</strong> <span class="fullpost"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-11700422599025627222007-09-25T15:02:00.000-07:002007-11-05T16:27:58.389-08:00<div style= "text-align: right;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(96,31,55); font-size:300%;">The U.S. Military</span><br><span style="COLOR: rgb(227,87,132); font-size:375%;">Canada's Big Bro'?</span><br /></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/RvwukSNXnWI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/Ftr6Qw9aozQ/s1600-h/risk.jpg"><img style="float:center; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/RvwukSNXnWI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/Ftr6Qw9aozQ/s400/risk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115014477684120930" /></a><br /><br />Barbara Yaffe is often like a breath of fresh air at the <span style="font-style:italic;">Vancouver Stunned</span>, as she often writes about relevant issues while actually acknowledging reality. She tends to get a bit stunned herself if Israel is the issue, but that seems to be required to maintain employment with the Mainstream Propaganda Machine. I must admit, I felt she strayed a bit off the reality-based reservation with her recent piece <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=5558759c-062f-49b0-be0d-dbf297e9ea4b">Symbiosis: We have energy, the U.S. can defend us</a></span>. Granted though, much of what she says here is accepted as common wisdom, in spite of the weaknesses of many of the assumptions. Her piece begins:<br /><blockquote><br />A compelling dynamic increasingly is at play in Canada-U.S. relations: Symbiosis.<br /><p><br />The United States is going to find itself more and more beholden to Canada for energy supplies, as Canada has always leaned on Uncle Sam for for military protection.<br /><p><br />Not a bad arrangement, when you think about it.<br /><p><br />The U.S. is the world's greatest military power and its defensive shield, built in its own best interest, has been designed to protect the continent.<br /><p><br />Why would we spend billions when we couldn't hope to defend ourselves against the Americans, and the Americans would protect northern soil from any outside invader?<br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />Indeed why should we spend "billions" on defense, when we can't defend ourselves from the country MOST LIKELY to invade us, indeed the only country that has engaged Canadians in battle on the North American continent. Mexico has oil also, but theUS hasn't invaded them lately. Indeed Mexico seems to be getting even nowadays, though their occupation of the US is much less violent than the US occupation of Iraq. But, really, why accept the bully most likely to roll you as your protector. <br /><p><br />Perhaps Canada should consider the Swiss model. The Swiss have survived centuries of warfare among the "powers" of Europe, often being in the center of the action, yet have managed to stay above the fray and un-invaded. Perhaps if it were common knowledge that Canada would have to be won house by house, by farm, by ranch and logging camp rather than by capturing Stephen Harper and making him say "uncle" it would be more convenient to deal with Canada honourably when seeking say...resources. <br /><p><br />There is no question that the United States of Greed covets what Canada has - the oil, the timber, the minerals, the agricultural bounty AND soon maybe most importantly the DRINKABLE water. Of course maybe I'm giving the U.S. more credit than they deserve and should just admit that they will just take what they want by military conquest if they can't get it through economic swindling - which is working pretty darn well for them at the moment. If Stephen Harper gets his coveted majority in Parliament and stays at the helm very long, he will probably retire as the governor of the largest state in the union. <br /><p><br />Ms. Yaffe is right when she says:<br /><p><br /><blockquote><br />To be sure, in saving on military spending, we have certainly expended some political capital; there has been a psychological price to pay in that the U.S. has always resented Canada for freeloading on its defense capacity.<br /><p><br />Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci went so far as to say so in 2005, when he publicly urged this country to start investing in its own military.<br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />I agree with the angry Italian who preceded the idiot missing from a village in the Carolinas, but Canada should invest in a military to defend its own territory and interests. Canada needs a high-tech air and sea oriented defense to patrol and protect its immense borders, all of which are shorelines, except that with our biggest threat, the bully down south. Our military shouldn't be designed to help the US and its Global Corporate interests in exploiting the rest of the world. Needless to say, there is little that Canada should emulate that characterizes the US, especially the US of Bush the Lesser. <br /><p><br />Right now the United States is trying to corral all the resources of the globe by scam or by the gun, using money borrowed from people who don't necessarily like them and won't necessarily continue to fund their dreams of empire. Canada should remember that it is a sovereign nation, with its own interests, which aren't necessarily the same as those of Amerika. I know the US is the biggest customer for Canadian exports, but all of the riches that Canada has are just as valuable everywhere on the planet. Making the US pay for Canadian goods in Euros might be something to think about in the meantime. <br /><p><br />It seems to me like Canada should re-consider the whole idea of being the bum boy to the biggest arsehole on the block.kootcoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11344208424209840730noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-83199052179666877402007-09-25T07:12:00.001-07:002007-09-25T08:36:18.412-07:00<p><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153);font-size:350%;" >Mulroney</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 128, 64);font-size:500%;" >The Great!</span></div><br /><center><span style="font-style:italic;font-size:100%;">(cross-posted from <a href="http://houseofinfamy.blogspot.com/">House of Infamy</a>)</span></center><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/RvghHiNXnVI/AAAAAAAAAGI/x8LulXG75ek/s1600-h/BFFS.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/RvghHiNXnVI/AAAAAAAAAGI/x8LulXG75ek/s400/BFFS.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113873790204878162" border="0" /></a><br /></p><p><br />What does the Jaw That Walks Like a Man, to borrow a phrase from Foth, have to do with the House of Infamy? Well not much, but so much of the reason for this blog, or any blog that tries to cover the BC Legislature Raids and BC Rail Trial is the failure of the local Canned West/Glowball media to even cover theses issues. Worse yet is the tendency of the same suspects to minimalise or distort the facts when they do actually pay attention to these important issues.<br /><p><br />Don't expect much coverage of the Independent Power Producers and the transfer of water rights on most of the streams in British Columbia, other than some Campbell and Cronies P.R. about debatable future hydro power shortages (in Phoenix, Arizona). TILMA, outsourcing (often out of province or Canada) of everything including Court Clerk Services, Medical Records and Billing, BC Hydro Billing, and ferry construction aren't really important enough for much coverage in our great news outlets. They have to save prime journalistic (to use the term loosely) real estate on the "Issues and Ideas" page for advertising and puff pieces like <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=f87e7481-aa0c-4bc2-805a-68cfd999d4dc">Mulroney redux</a></span>.<br /><p><br />This paean to the man that almost single handedly (with the help of his cronies) destroyed the old Progressive Conservative Party, leaving the carcass for the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Reform Church of Steven Harper</span> to crawl into to use as a disguise, should actually be labeled as advertising. Probably it was passed off as an "opinion" piece to avoid prosecution under fairness/honesty in advertising regulations (though I'm probably dreaming to think there are any, anymore in the new de-regulated Neo-Con Paradise). Upon reading (with periodic breaks for gagging) this virtually fact free revision of recent history, one is not surprised to find that its author, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Gregory Thomas</span>, "was national co-chairman of Youth for Brian Mulroney in the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership campaign." I can only imagine that now Mr. Thomas is writing to the Pope to nominate Lyin' Brian for canonization.<br /><p><br />Those with a strong enough stomach can follow the link and read the whole fairy tale, but I would like to point out some of the more absurd statements it contains. The sub-title is:<br /><p><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Despite the views on some mean streets in Toronto, the former PM is hugely popular and has a sterling legacy</span><br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />Some people might say he's lucky to be un-indicted, and owes that fact to the ability to obstruct justice from a high enough political position......hmmmm, sounds like justice in British Columbia. Paper bags full of money are somewhat of a legacy in British Columbia also. It turns out those mean streets are all in a small part of Toronto.<br /><p><br /></p><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">.....beginning just west of Spadina, proceed 700 metres or so, continue another four blocks to Yonge, then 600 metres back toward the lake under the Gardiner Expressway, you can visit most of his detractors in the space of 10 minutes.<br /><p><br />They work in three newsrooms -- the Toronto Star's, the Globe and Mail's and the CBC's -- inter-mingling and inter-marrying, thinking no original thoughts.<br /></span><br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />In other words, kinda like the only three newsrooms in Canada that aren't owned by somebody named either Asper or Black.<br /><p><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And so we come to myth No. 2, the suggestion that Mulroney's legacy is somehow inferior to that of Trudeau, who, by all accounts, looked pretty good on TV.<br /><p><br />It is grossly unfair to compare the two men. Mulroney was simply better -- a better leader, a better husband, a better father, a better man.<br /><p><br />Mulroney's foreign policy initiatives tower in comparison to those of Trudeau -- free trade, an end to apartheid, and the expansion of NATO to include Eastern Europe.<br /><p> </p><br />His constitutional vision, embodied in the Meech Lake Accord, has outlived and outlasted Trudeau's Ottawa centralism.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />Seems to me that Mulroney and his sycophants, like Thomas, suffer from a near terminal case of P.E.T. envy. I don't care how many times you repeat lies it still doesn't make them true. Let's examine the first statement:<br /><p><ul><br /><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">better leader?</span> - Trudeau didn't destroy the Liberal Party, even though he led it twice as long as the Jaw took to destroy the PCs.</li><br /><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">a better husband? </span>- I'll admit that Brian managed to find and keep a woman just as shallow and materialistic as himself - but better?</li><br /><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">better father?</span> - Pierre appears to have produced the superior offspring, and I doubt if Justin or Alexandre would concur</li><br /><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">better man?</span> - how do you determine that Greg, do you have a queer eye for the straight guys?</li><br /></ul><br /><p><br />I'll give you Free Trade, indeed, I wish I could give it back. Did you notice there is no free trade? Free Trade is whatever the USA wants, as in the Soft Wood Lumber dispute and eventual giveaway thanks to Harper and Emerson the Quislings. But Apartheid, Brian ended it, eh? and expanded NATO too, eh? Are you sure you aren't getting confused between Brian and his BFF (Best Friend Forever) Ronnie Raygun or things that required a lot of multi-lateral co-operation? <br /><p><br /><blockquote><br />.....Mulroney was willing to put everything on the line with Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, his most powerful ally, to secure Mandela's freedom.<br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />Oh yeah, I didn't know Brian broke Nelson Mandela out of jail in South Africa, with Maggie and Ronnie's help. There were more countries than Canada and the ones led by Brian's hero and heroine that put pressure on the Apartheid government which led to the freeing of Mr. Mandela. What did Brian "risk" or "put on the line," by the way, in supporting the sanctions and boycott of South Africa? Oh, I get it, he was afraid that the South African government would cut off the diamond supply for Mila, and we hadn't discovered our own in the North yet!<br /><p><br />Then Greg raves about Mulroney's Constitutional Vision - The Meech Lake Accord. I will point out just one minor point and then I will go. But in just a few words, in this case quoted from <a href="http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/meech-lake-accord-history-overview">mapleleafweb</a> (just so Greg doesn't think I'm just making stuff up, like he seems to do). Without going into the details or whys and wherefores the great legacy of the Meech Lake Accord can be summed up thusly:<br /><p><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Meech Lake Accord is a set of failed constitutional amendments, proposed in the late-1980s.</span></span><br /></blockquote><br /><p><br />I guess my buddy Kirk must have approved this ad, "heckuva job Pointy," as usual! Maybe someday there will be a genuine big-city newspaper in Vancouver or some genuine TV News - but I'm not gonna hold my breath!kootcoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11344208424209840730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-68774949285428176542007-08-24T08:54:00.000-07:002007-08-24T13:52:51.310-07:00<div style= "text-align: right;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(96,31,55); font-size:450%;">You Tube</span><br><span style="COLOR: rgb(227,87,132); font-size:350%;">Weapon for Truth</span><br /></div><br /><p><br />When I first became aware of You Tube, it seemed like a good idea and Google apparently agreed as their acquisition of the dewy cheeked start-up would soon demonstrate to the world (and the instant moguls who had created You Tube). The nifty little web application seemed like such a handy way for folks to share videos of their cats being endearing or to display their own wacky humor to the world. But I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised at how this baby and totally democratic medium has become a weapon in the war against the Corporate Media and the Lies it tries to promulgate. <br /><br />Two recent incidents here in Canada demonstrate some early victories against the likes of GlowBall/Canned West and the Faux News Liars of the airwaves and printed news. <br /><br />The recent protests against the secret agenda of the three North American Clowns at Montebello are the first example I will discuss. I would recommend going over to the <a href="http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/">Canadian Cynic</a> to pursue an elevated interest in this incident as he has been all over it ever since it happened, telling and showing it like it is/was and de-constructing the reich wingnuts and their blathering around the truth in his Canadian and Cynical style.<br /><br />What occurred, in short, was that the only "demonstrators" that appeared to be agitating for and promoting violence (and carrying rocks to throw) were confronted by other protesters at which time these "violent types" headed FOR the police lines and were taken into custody, without having their masks removed or removing them themselves. Then mysteriously these dudes(the only violent "bad" actors) were released without charges and their identity remained a mystery as well. When protest organizers and others suggested that these "mystery" men were police provocateurs the representatives for the various cops had this to say:<br /><br /> <blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"> The RCMP has refused to comment, while Quebec provincial police have flatly denied that its officers were involved in the incident.<br /><br /> It said it is not releasing any names as no charges were laid.<br /></span><br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/Rs8_QwIacdI/AAAAAAAAAFA/PuW6aBZ6pMs/s1600-h/montebello1.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/Rs8_QwIacdI/AAAAAAAAAFA/PuW6aBZ6pMs/s400/montebello1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102366459864707538" /></a>Videotape and still photos then flooded the internet, many of them on You Tube, including some that suggested the "violent" rock toting protesters and the police shopped at the same shoe store and had the same sense of style. Eventually we got this from the Quebec Provincial Police who earlier had denied having any "pretend protesters" planted with the real protesters. <br /><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The RCMP and Quebec police force have denied allegations their officers posed as protesters to try to provoke peaceful demonstrators at the recent Montebello summit.<br /><br />"I confirm (to) you that there is no agents provocateurs in the Surete du Quebec... It doesn't exist in the Surete du Quebec," spokesperson Const. Melanie Larouche told The Canadian Press </span><br /></blockquote><br /><br />Lo and behold, now the story starts changing, since so many people were watching so much actual you know "evidence" and believing their lyin' eyes in spite of the fact that Stephen Harper had told them there were only a half dozen demonstrators. By today the statements from the Pork in Uniform are very different than what they had to say at first (when they didn't realize everyone could see for themselves what had happened). The official story now is:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Quebec admit they went undercover at Montebello protest</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protests at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.<br /><br />The police came under fire Wednesday when protesters accused the force of planting undercover officers in the demonstration to provoke violence. A video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to depict disguised police in the crowd.<br /><br />The provincial police, in a news release, said its officers went undercover to identify and stop non-peaceful protesters. </span><br /></blockquote><br /><br />Somewhat conveniently the Spokesman for Uniformed Pork didn't mention that the only protesters packing and threatening to throw rocks and wearing masks WERE THE UNDERCOVER COPS. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that. Even more amusing, as the Cynic (Canadian variety) points out:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">I'm guessing somebody is going to regret not taking the time to come up with a better lie than this one: <br /><br /> <blockquote> <span style="font-weight:bold;">Police said that after viewing the clip, they were able to confirm the men were Quebec provincial police officers</span>.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />I'm sorry ... the police are saying that they had no idea that the three provocateurs were also police until they watched the YouTube clip? They didn't know that while those three idiots were cavorting around with rocks, while they were being arrested or while they were subsequently being freed without being charged? Not during any of that time!? They're saying that that's how they would normally treat potentially violent demonstrators?<br /><br />This so needs a public inquiry in the worst way. This isn't even remotely close to being over.</span></blockquote><p><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:125%;">Switching Yard Accident in PG </span><p><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/Rs9CpQIaceI/AAAAAAAAAFI/zgURGcMiuOo/s1600-h/PG5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/Rs9CpQIaceI/AAAAAAAAAFI/zgURGcMiuOo/s400/PG5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5102370179306385890" /></a><br /><center>Prince George Switching Yard (...right!)</center><br />Early this month an incident occurred that was described in all the media as an accident in the switching yard in Prince George by CN, the Rail Road that never ran a train that it could keep on the track, in BC at least it seems. According to most reports there was no environmental risk, no REALLY dangerous materials, just a minor accident in the yard putting trains together. <a href="http://">BC Mary</a> was the citizen journalist all over this one, and she had the help of some local people in Prince George who posted video clips on You Tube, shared photos with us showing clearly that it was more like a train collision on the mainline, on a bank above the Fraser River, close by parks and residential neighborhoods. Oh yeah, I don't know what qualifies as dangerous materials, but when thick black smoke is rising in the air even higher than the 10-15 meter high flames and water bombers need to be called in to fight the fire it ain't exactly just an overheated break drum on a set of wheels. <br /><br />Once again the OFFICIAL CN, BC Government, and GlowBall/Canned West story was shown up as the skein of lies that it was, thanks to the internet and the ease of sharing pictures and videos on You Tube. This is why I think You Tube is more than just an amusing little piece of software, rapidly it is becoming one of the average citizen's best weapons in the important battle to defeat the forces that would like to make George Orwell's nightmares come true. This is just one reason that Net Neutrality is so important, the same media conglomerates that control the so-called Main Stream Media can't be allowed to control the internet too, or we might as well just bow our heads and be fitted for our slave collars.kootcoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11344208424209840730noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-27822276766216979402007-07-13T22:57:00.000-07:002007-07-14T10:14:40.407-07:00<p></p><div><br /><span style="color: rgb(196, 31, 155); text-align: left;font-size:300%;" >Stephen Harper</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(196, 31, 155); text-align: left;font-size:300%;" > The RCMP</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(227, 87, 132); text-align: left;font-size:150%;" >...Towards a Fascist State in Canada.</span></div><p><br /><br />*******Introductory Stuff***************<br />*NOTE (from kootcoot). The following is a new column written by that concerned Canadian, Robin Matthews. I am going to just post it as I received it and let it speak for itself, which it does powerfully. Thank you Robin, so much, for permission to post it here. For more of Robin's important writing at ViveleCanada click <a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/index.php?topic=robinscolumn">here</a>. It is all important stuff of interest to anyone who cares about Canada as a free and independent nation for Canadians rather than a colonial stockpile of resources for the US of A and the Corporations that think the world was created for their benefit.<br /><br />*NOTE (from Robin). This column expresses an idea that will be offensive to some people. They might conclude the column is the product of a fevered (not to say insane) mind. Time may prove them correct. Time, unfortunately, may prove they are wrong and that the column is more correct and far-seeing than any of us wish it to be - it attempts to force attention to a real, major invasion of Canadian freedoms which most Canadians are refusing to see.<br /><br />************************<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Begin with Stephen Harper: </span>always a servant of the large, private corporations and now of the US expansionists. In addition, he is a modern Capitalist/Christian Fundamentalist - which means a stalwart in the present war against the poor, the vulnerable, ordinary Canadians, the sovereignty of Canada, policies of social equality, and - of course - against The Infidel anywhere in the world.<br /><br />To do its work effectively in Canada, the Harper group needs to coerce Canadians into fear and undemocratic submission. That's where the RCMP comes in. <br /><br />Any organized proto-fascist group moving to take State power into a totalitarian grip needs a repressive police force. And it needs (in the short term) to cooperate with any force - however named - in the society that will ally with it. British Columbia has, by name, a "Liberal" government (which is perhaps the most reactionary government in Canada). A Liberal government should be at odds with a Harper Reactionary government, one might say. But there is a rumour in B.C. that top Liberals in the province are working against a Stephane Dion victory and for a Harper victory in the next federal election. That makes sense. There are spoils to share in the dismantling of Canada and in the development of a fascist state; get in line.<br /><br />The role of the RCMP in the move to the Right, in the move to close off democratic freedoms has been growing relentlessly, alarmingly, unchallenged and even unexamined in any serious way. The seriousness of breaches of trust in the RCMP is persistently underestimated, glossed over, discounted.<br /><br />It's role in the Asia Pacific meetings at UBC in Vancouver was proto-fascist and was alarmingly whitewashed in the Inquiry Report by former judge Ted Hughes. That was the only scandal of the list I will mention that has been inquired into - and the Report was a disgraceful, compounded cover-up of RCMP wrong-doing. (Notice the role, in the move towards totalitarianism, of present and retired judicial figures.)<br /><br />The RCMP role in the B.C. Gustafsen Lake "stand off" with a few dozen Native people is worthy of a major film - to say nothing of its' screaming for an independent Inquiry. The RCMP action was corrupt, military, secretive, fascistic, and "historic". "Historic" in many ways - one being the use of/cooperation with the Canadian military in the "events". One of the most poignant historic moments, in addition, was the statement by a major media liaison RCMP officer - on a film to be used for training new RCMP recruits - that "smear campaigns are our [the RCMP's] specialty".<br /><br />The role of the RCMP in what I call "the fraudulent investigation and trial of [B.C. NDP premier] Glen Clark" was so questionable that a full inquiry is absolutely necessary. A question hangs in the air - and grows more insistent: did [now premier] Gordon Campbell or did his associates work, with active RCMP cooperation, to effect the fraudulent destruction of Glen Clark and his NDP government on the way to an Ottawa/B.C. proto-fascist movement?<br /><br />We must return to that question. <br /><br />First. Two more instances of deep suspicion about RCMP activities. Out of the corrupt sale by the Gordon Campbell cabinet of BC Rail have come criminal charges for fraud and breach of trust against Campbell-appointed cabinet aides. Were the men fingered because they double-crossed their bosses and allegedly were making money on the side? Did honest RCMP officers begin proceedings that couldn't be stopped - and so have to be scuttled?<br /><br />Whatever the case, an RCMP officer is alleged to have handed information to at least one (family relation) top Liberal in a pipeline to Gordon Campbell. RCMP, moreover, closed all investigations of Liberal cabinet ministers and, it would appear, of other highly placed B.C. Liberals. In addition, RCMP has repeatedly failed to assist or has fallen short when evidence has been required by the Defence in the fraud and breach of trust proceedings.<br /><br />Response by the presiding judge, Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett, to the visible, astonishing failure of the RCMP in the matter of the production of evidence has appeared to be slow, listless, ingenuous - there may be other more pointedly descriptive terms.<br /><br />What is more, Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm, who signed the search warrants on December 24, 2003, to allow far-reaching search, has adamantly refused to release the search warrant texts - which he is normally obliged to do when the searches are complete. Justice Dohm "released" a search warrant document nine months after the searches. Pages upon pages of the document are totally blacked out.<br /><br />Does that mean there is more than RCMP and proto-fascist government co-operation in Canada?<br /><br />Now headquarters of the RCMP has exploded with corruption and allegations of corruption. RCMP Commissioner Juliano Zaccardelli has been forced to resign in disgrace. Allegations of coercion, of favouritism, of cronyism are heaped on allegations of serious misappropriation and misspending of funds. There is not only suspicion but undoubted fact involved in the corruption at RCMP headquarters.<br /><br />Serious investigation? Names named? Charges laid? Don't be silly. The opposite. The Stephen Harper government is doing everything it can - from all appearances - to cover up everything illicit there and to paper over all the cracks. And perhaps with good reasonŠ.<br /><br />A huge question about an open betrayal of democracy is before all Canadians. During the last federal election the RCMP announced a (fraudulent?) investigation into the Ralph Goodale (Liberal Minister of Finance) Income Trust measures. The announcement was unprecedented, was apparently fraudulent, and is alleged to have seriously changed the outcome of the election in favour of the Stephen Harper forces.<br /><br />Were the Harper forces privy to and a part of the, almost certainly, fake investigation (which was quietly dropped after the election)? Did Harper or the Harper forces make promises to Juliano Zaccardelli in order to "pay" for help with the election? Certainly, Harper seemed to approve of Zaccardelli, promising him an increase of 1000 officers for the RCMP not long after the election. <br /><br />In fact, until Zaccardelli's disgraceful actions could no longer be hidden, he was solidly supported by Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper. The House of Commons Committee forced (some of) RCMP corruption into public view. The revelations were forced upon Stephen Harper. A full-scale, independent, no-holds-barred inquiry is desperately necessary in this case - and the Harper forces are making absolutely certain such an inquiry doesn't take place.<br /><br />If there was a deal between the Harper forces and the Zaccardelli forces, it had to be a proto-fascist deal. A political party seeking power working illicitly to use the national police force for political ends with promises of pay-off constitutes treason. Is there an independent commission of inquiry into the RCMP invasion of the last federal election?<br /><br />If there was a deal between the Harper forces and the Zaccardelli forces, what is the situation now that Zaccaradelli is gone?<br /><br />The situation may, in fact, be more favourable for a movement to a police forces-supported fascist state in Canada. The exit of Zaccardelli has had strange results. One: Stephen Harper has prevented the absolutely necessary full, independent, public inquiry. Two. He had a limited and carefully contained "review" conducted - a wholly stage-managed "inquiry". Three. He has appointed a political loyalist to be the new RCMP Commissioner - an almost certain guarantee that the force will work for the Harper interests rather than as an independent force working for Canadians.<br /><br />William Elliott (the new "independent" Commissioner) was quite happy to be a close deputy to Stockwell Day before being named RCMP Commissioner. There is, therefore, no reason to suppose Elliott will tackle the real problems of the RCMP. There is every reason to suppose he won't. As assistant-secretary to cabinet in the Privy Council Office, with responsibility for security and intelligence, he apparently saw nothing wrong with the operation of the RCMP.<br /><br />The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is one of the running sores on the diseased body of law and justice in Canada. William Elliott has made no comment, that I have been able to find, about that disgrace to Canadian democracy.<br /><br />Now a Task Force will undertake another phony review of the RCMP. It will eventuate in a structure that further releases the force from the legal bonds by which other Canadians are bound. It will very likely chop up the RCMP and policing duties in Canada, the easier to place them under the control of political thugs. It will produce no wrong-doers in the huge corruption at RCMP headquarters; it will increase the "Gestapo" powers of the new policing entities - under the pretence of National Security.<br /><br />The sickness of the RCMP cannot be over-stated. The announced criminal investigation of the Ralph Goodale Income Trust matter during the last election was - on the national level - an outrage of immense proportions, showing that an unregulated RCMP, apparently, was ready to go into what may very well have been criminal interference with the democratic process (and, as I say, maybe with the approval and support of the Stephen Harper forces). A full-scale investigation of that event is absolutely essential to Canadian democratic freedom.<br /><br />The present, ludicrous, Kafka'esque killing and "investigation" - on the private level - of twenty year old Ian Bush of Houston, B.C., shot in the back of the head by an RCMP constable in a police office, requires a full-scale, public inquiry now. The contradictory evidence - to put the matter gently - is so alarming only a full-scale, independent inquiry can satisfy the requirements of justice. An independent forensics expert, for instance, insisted the constable's description of his shooting of Ian Bush described an impossibility. An adequate inquiry will not be held.<br /><br />The Ian Bush story - "small" and "private" - is the Juliano Zaccardelli story seen through the other end of the telescope. In the case of Ian Bush a (carefully hobbled) coroner's inquest had to be held. (The coroner - upon whose orders? - seriously restricted the jury which should have defied the coroner and made a public report independently.) Gary Mason (Globe and Mail, July 10 07 S1) counts up the contradictions that came out of the inquest: "that Constable Koester destroyed the notes he made of what happened the night he shot Ian Bush; that he huddled with RCMP's chief investigator in the case to craft a short account of the shooting the day after it happened; that he waited 18 days before providing his first detailed statement of what happened. And then there's the fact that it took three months before Constable Koester was interviewed by RCMP investigators who provided him with a list of questions he was going to be asked two days before the interview took place."<br /><br />The news of the corruption at RCMP headquarters and of the painful contradictions in the Ian Bush killing should fill Stephen Harper and his cabinet with consternation, leading them to a publicly declared determination to (a) find any wrong-doers, (b) to charge them, and (c) to construct a system where such behaviour becomes impossible - after full-scale, wide-open independent public inquiries.<br /><br />Gary Mason describes a lawless and unregulated police force far, far beyond responsibility to the people of Canada, a force that appears to work happily with the corrupt B.C. Gordon Campbell government, openly and covertly. At the other end of the telescope the failure of Stephen Harper to have a major inquiry into the RCMP corruption in Ottawa - and beyond - confirms that there have to be, I allege, officers in many positions in the RCMP who are - in all likelihood - criminals.<br /><br />Those ugly facts are exactly, I am arguing, what the Stephen Harper and proto-fascist forces in Canada want. Fascist police forces are not made out of honest men and women.<br /><br />by Robin Matthews<br /><br />******************<br /><br />When I start worrying unduly about all this kind of stuff, I just remind myself to remember that this guy is looking after my safety:<p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/RpkDLnp0OmI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/Fx-CBQktLrk/s1600-h/stockwell2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6nKJhfxGOY/RpkDLnp0OmI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/Fx-CBQktLrk/s400/stockwell2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5087100752249502306" /></a><p><br /><span style="color: rgb(227, 87, 132); text-align: center;font-size:150%;" ><span style="font-weight:bold;">Stockwell Stands on Guard, for Me and Thee!</span></span>kootcoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11344208424209840730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36373883.post-31024295493084450632007-05-06T14:26:00.000-07:002007-05-07T06:00:59.717-07:00<p><div "text-align: right;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(227,87,132); TEXT-ALIGN: right; font-size:250%;"> Do We Really Need a</span><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(96,31,55);TEXT-ALIGN: right; font-size:450%;" > Blogger's Code?</span></div><br /><p><br />Although speech is still free here at freespeechca, words have been in short supply here of late. The call of Spring and the tragic loss of Mr. and Mrs. Coyote's daughter recently have a lot to do with Coyote's absence from these pages. There are few more tragic things in my mind than a parent having to deal with the funeral of a child, the kids are supposed to come to ours, sometime waaaaay in the future. I ran into an article today that I thought should be discussed here though rather than somewhere else. The very name of the blog and some of the discussions with the Sentinel make the following relevant here and now.<br /><p>Thanks to David Poque, the tech writer for the New York Times I was pointed to <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/call_for_a_blog_1.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct</span></a> at the blog <span style="font-style:italic;">Radar</span>, blogging home of Tim O'Reilly, publisher of the classic standards in programming so treasured by geeks and so familiar that they are referred to by the animal on the cover of the particular one. <span style="font-style: italic;">Perl in a Nutshell</span> is nicknamed "the Camel Book" The tech writer for the Times is also a much more reliable writer than say Judith "kneepads" Miller and not as prone to putting spin on everything (say for Microsoft or Sony instead of Bu$hco).<br /><br />The experiences of his friend (and writer) Kathy Sierra prompted Tim to consider the possible need for a code of blogger conduct.<br /></p><p><br /><blockquote>Tim) was quoted in a BBC article a few days ago and a San Francisco Chronicle article on Thursday calling for a "Blogger's Code of Conduct" in response to the firestorm that has arisen as a result of Kathy Sierra's revelation that she's been targeted by a series of increasingly violent and disturbing anonymous comments on her blog and on a series of weblogs that appeared to have been created for the purpose of celebrating cyber-bullying.<br /></p><p>Tim proposes seven steps in what he points out "are just a work in progress, and hopefully a spur for further discussion."</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on <br /> your blog.</span></p><blockquote>There's an attitude among many bloggers that deleting inflammatory comments is censorship. I think that needs to change. I'm not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so.<br /><p>There are many real-world analogies. Shock radio hosts encourage abusive callers; a mainstream talk radio show like NPR's Talk of the Nation wouldn't hesitate to cut someone off who started spewing hatred and abuse. Frat parties might encourage drunken lewdness, but a party at a tech conference would not. Setting standards for acceptable behavior in a forum you control is conducive to free speech, not damaging to it.</p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.. </span><br /></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments. </span><br /></p><blockquote>When people are anonymous, they will often let themselves say or do things that they would never do when they are identified. There are important contexts in which anonymity is important, for example, for political speech in repressive regimes. But in most contexts, accountability via identity changes how people behave. Requiring a valid email address for comments won't prevent people who want to hide their identity from doing so, but it's one more indication that accountability is valued.<br /></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Ignore the trolls.</span><br /><p><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.</span><br /></p><p><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.</span><br /></p><p><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.</span><br /></p><blockquote>The next time you're tempted to vent your anger or frustration online, imagine you're talking to your mother. Or if you have no respect for your mother, imagine you're talking to a big, mean dude that you met on the street. Or simply imagine the person you're speaking to as a real person, standing in front of you. Would you say what you're saying to them if you were in the same room?<br /></blockquote><br /><br />There's a lot more over at <a href="http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/call_for_a_blog_1.html">Radar</a>, and if you have an interest in blogging, it is well worth checking out the link. David Poque has some interesting comments on the subject in his newsletter for April 26, and I imagine that column can be found at the Times, unless he too is behind the pay wall, like Mo Mo Dowd and Frank Rich. Of course some so called writers like Tom Friedman and David Brooks - I'm so glad they are behind the paywall, make it higher even, for them. O'Reilly ends his posting with:<br /><br /><blockquote>......frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. There's no reason why we should tolerate conversations online that we wouldn't tolerate in our living room.<br /><p><br />A culture is a set of shared agreements that allows us to live together. Let's make sure that the culture we create with our blogs is one that we are proud of.<br /></p></blockquote>kootcoothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11344208424209840730noreply@blogger.com3