"Workers As Citizens" is not Confiscatory

There is no transfer of property rights under "Workers as Citizens." Workers receive the rights that citizens in a democracy nominally receive. They do enjoy far greater control over the organization's decision than previously, which includes the distribution of the earnings. But this is what we're all calling for anyway and would happen even under far more modest reforms such as more pro-unionization legislation and enforcement. Even fairer taxation would produce the effect of a "confiscation" of wealth.

And, again I ask: What else is there? There is a reason that we can't simply return to the "golden age" of Keynesian capitalism. This has to do with power relations within our political economy. We can't expect capitalism to obey pro-environmental legislation simply because a "green" political party has won the right to govern. Those are the only two options that I hear mainstream political activists talking about. The other one, that of the "radicals" appears to call for Quixotic cries of "To the barricades!" which, even if they were not sadly ludicrous, are not realistic because people aren't eager for the violent upheaval and the civil war that will emerge out of the power-vacuum that violent overthrow of the state would entail.

It is money/capitalism that corrupts our democracy, devastates our planet and spurs on present-day imperialism. It is only by getting the people to control their economic lives that we will bring this to an end. Putting everything into a small group of hands through some process of nationalization or centralization won't work. Only democratic decision-making at the enterprise level is realistic. The easiest way, by far, to achieve this is through the political-legal path.

In a Democratic Canada the "Fair Elections Act" Would Have Produced Rioting by Now

 It's pretty ridiculous. Canadians watching the news from Venezuela or the Ukraine and believing they and the Canadian government have something to say about "democracy" and "the people" in those countries, when our own government is proposing to institutionalize election fraud and Canadians are ignorant, indifferent or enthusiastic about it.

If I knew that there were a couple of dozen people in Toronto who would be willing to trash some MP's office over this I'd be so there. But a rock thrown through an HBC store window in futile rage against the waste of the Vancouver Olympics was too much for most leftists.

But don''t worry! LeadNow is going to send stephen harper a PETITION!

It's enough to make one weep.

Democracy Debased

I will argue that when mass democracy was still a fairly young thing, it produced results because elites didn't know how to handle it.

All adult males got the vote roughly around 1900. Women got the vote around 1920. By the 1930s we got pro-union legislation in the USA and welfare states all around Europe by the late-1940's into the 1960s. (Admittedly, the shocks of the Great Depression and World War II had something to do with that.)

The point is, democracy seemed to get results. And people's human rights (the working classes, non-whites, women, children, and nowadays, LGBT) began to be respected. (Or "coddled" as right-wing fuckwads would put it.)

But beginning in the 1950s there's been a concerted effort by corporate vermin to denigrate democracy and to pander to people's misanthropy and bigotry. A large minority of people have been hoodwinked into cheering on the destruction of the welfare state (imbeciles like Kady Shaidle, who rely on disability payments for instance), and the demonization of their opponents. (Witness, if you please the difference between my criticisms of Barack Obama and a Tea-Bagger's. Or the murdering of lefties and feminists fantasies of the right-wing with my aspersions about the right's lack of intelligence and brutality.)

In the 1980s this went into overdrive with the administrations of Reagan and Thatcher. The rise of neo-liberalism has turned the state into nothing more than an incompetent administrator of austerity and exploitation. And the demise of any rival systems to threaten it has allowed elites to throw caution to the winds and pursue the society-shredding policies of the last two decades, to tighten their grip on the rest of the world with ruthless murder, to enact draconian anti-human rights policies (in the "war on terror" bullshit) and to basically turn their own democratic fig-leaf or responsibility into a a rotted thing that barely covers their rancid, stinking genitalia.

Right now, they're laughing all the way to their own banks. But what I foresee is a military dictatorship. That's the only force that can best the banksters. The Wall Street and Washington criminal class will go to far, poverty at the bottom will breed crime and misery; corruption at the top widespread social disgust. A general, or some other strongman with military ties, will respond with some form of authoritarian populism and the plutocrats will be forced into their mansions (if they're lucky).

It will be the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte all over again. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. And third, as pointless tragedy again.

Qawedryhujikolp

That's my new made-up word!

Campaign Slogans

The harpercons are not just soft on crime. They're pro-crime. Their economic policies create the conditions for crime and criminals and their prison policies create repeat offenders.

Dignity. Where is the dignity in unemployment or precarious employment? Stable jobs, strong unions, decent wages, create dignity and confidence in the future. The harpercons want to rob you of your future.

Free and fair elections. The harpercons are serial violators of election laws. They're the most detestable hypocrites imaginable. Now they're proposing legislation that will make their criminal behaviour our official election rules.

Woody Allen and Believing Victims

I thought it was creepy when Woody Allen married his adopted step-daughter. I believed that both Woody and Mia Farrow must be weirdo fucked-up people. So when Mia discovered that Woody had molested his own kids right after his betrayal, and that these allegations were successfully denied in the courts, I put her accusations down to a desire for revenge.

Why am I talking about these two celebrities?

Because the issues involved effect all of us. When Dylan Farrow reacted to Woody's life-time achievement award from some organization, by insisting that he had molested her, my response was: Perhaps. But maybe not. I don't know who's telling the truth and I never will. Again, I thought Mia's accusations were too conveniently timed and he'd successfully defended himself against them. It's possible for a parent to turn a child against the other parent.

But what about the memories of abuse? Some people think that the "false memory syndrome" people are a bunch of dangerous flakes and there's plenty of evidence for that apparently. Other people falsely remember satanic ritual abuse experiences and some broken souls have "confessed" to such imaginary crimes.

I thought that IF Mia had invented those accusations, and worked on a small child for years and years, it's possible the child would end up believe in things that never happened.

But a whole lot of people (mostly feminists) said that giving a man the benefit of the doubt is a political, anti-feminist act. To believe by default that a man (or anyone accused of a sexual assault) is innocent is to say that the accuser is lying. That not deciding one way or the other is to allow a possible perpetrator of abuse to walk free and to deny the claims to suffering of the victim. "Not deciding" is actually a decision against the accuser.

Furthermore, it is absurd to imagine that there is an epidemic of false rape or sexual abuse accusations. Police statistics themselves say that only 2-4% of rape allegations are false. Most sexual assaults aren't reported out of fear of reprisals or due to the stress and abuse suffered by victims at the hands of the system (including police, media, families and the courts). For someone to actually make the charge takes great determination for justice.

With regards to Woody Allen, a lot of stuff came out that made me think there might be something to those allegations after all. The clincher for me was imbecile Margaret Wente wading in on his side. But regardless of this specific case, I still say it makes me uncomfortable to go from "believe the victim" to "condemn the accused." Because I thought "believe the victim" was meant to be an antidote to the mindset of "you weren't raped, you were asking for it, look how you were dressed." It was meant to treat a claim of sexual assault with a claim of having been robbed. Somebody reports a crime and the police are supposed to act as if they believe them and set out to find the guilty party.

I mean, the problem is that we'll have (for example) a teenaged girl go to a party at some guy's house and she winds up dumped in the snow on her front lawn in the cold of a freezing winter's night, and she's only barely sober enough to tap on the front door so that her parents can find her and save her from dying from hypothermia. Then it turns out that the charming young men at the party have used their cell-phones to record themselves plying her with booze until she's incapacitated, whereupon they record themselves raping her, and this is further corroborated because the girl's mother takes her down to the hospital the next day and examinations show she's been raped .... and police don't lay charges because there isn't enough evidence.

I'm sorry, but is the only antidote to that bullshit to be that you automatically believe that the accused is guilty from the get-go?

I wouldn't be surprised if people reading this disagree with me. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to hear back from people. Believe it or not, I've learned stuff online over the years. About gay rights and about feminism and about racism. (I've also heard that it's bullshit privilege for me to ask for these insights and that I should educate myself. If you believe that, then by all means, don't bother to interact with me.)

About Trolls

Boris over at The Galloping Beaver found a study that argues that internet trolls are psychotic fuckwads.

That makes sense. I used to go to right-wing sites and argue with them. I'd argue pretty caustically sometimes (given what hateful, racist, war-monger shit-heads they were) but I'd never pretend I hadn't made a mistake when I'd made one. And I'd never return again and again to make mindless, ad hominem insults about the blogger.

To do that, one would have to be a psychotic fuckwad. Like a genuine troll.

Sorry I don't have anything more valuable to say.

Can't Muster Enthusiasm to Care About Foreign Affairs

Oh sure. I probably follow things more than the average person, but I find it increasingly hard to see the point of commenting on events in other countries when we can't even do anything about getting control of our own country. You know, I'm long since past the point where I'd say that Canada should "do something" about unspeakable horrors somewhere. Not only do I realize that our governments are controlled by monsters, it's increasingly obvious that we have zero influence and zero ability to gain influence to control these beasts.

"Sign this petition!"

Of for fuck's sake!

"Attend this one-day rally!"

Sorry. I'm pretty sure I'm busy on whatever day you plan on having that thing.

"Vote Liberal!"

Groady! Like, gag me with a spoon!

"Vote NDP!"

Slow-motion Liberals.

"Vote Green!"

An exercise in futility.

We're all so atomized and distracted. The pitiful few Canadians who actually care about their democracy are separated by vast distances and hobbled by few resources. Those few resources that progressives control are in the hands of dull plodders who wouldn't know what to do with people if they'd, by some miracle, mobilized them. (There are, obviously, right-wingers who imagine that they care about democracy too. For them, democracy is threatened by affirmative action programs, restrictions on their right to say "nigger" and "fag," and environmentalists who don't think the earth is a toilet. And then there are the "libertarians" who think stop signs are the first step on the road to Stalinism.

Go down to the neighbourhood bar and try to get people upset about Pierre Pollywog's "Fraudulent Elections Law" and they'll tell you to STFU so they can watch the Olympics. ("Go Canada Go!")

Is it just me or is there starting to develop an even more hyperventilating patriotism/nationalism in this country? Some laughable attempt to get Canadians just as pumped-up about empty symbolism as US-Americans are?

Dear CBC: The Olympics Isn't the Big Story

... You stupid fucks.

"This just in: The harpercon government has just begun the process of ramming-through legislation that Elections Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand calls 'an affront to democracy.' Also, they've introduced legislation to strip citizenship from Canadians, even those who were born here, and ship them off to countries that torture .... Wait! What's this? Ladies and gentlemen! Fantastic news! CANADA HAS JUST WON THE SILVER MEDAL IN EXTREME DOWNHILL SLED-CURLING!!!! Let's go live to Sochi for the latest!!!"

Uprisingis to Defend the System?

 Once again; it's called a "Constitutional Insurgency."

How the Fuck is it Supposed to Work???!!!?

Non-violent, mainstream protesters; you leave me kerfluffled. Boggling. Please explain it to me!

There's an inhuman policy that you don't like.

You decide to protest.

You set a time and place and you advertise.

A few people show up. You know many of them. Depending on the issue and other factors, your numbers can be anywhere from 5 to 100,000.

You have people speak about the issue. You affect to speak directly to the politicians you disagree with. You chant. You wave your signs.

You go home.

How in the fuck is that supposed to accomplish anything?

I wouldn't ask except for the fact that it seems it's all you're capable of coming up with.

You do this again and again and again as if you think somehow something different will result from it all.

I just need someone to explain the point of it to me.

Where's The Outrage???

Oh, it's there all right. Every time you type "I can't believe there hasn't been an uprising yet" there are many more Canadians thinking the same thing. It's still a small minority of Canadians, but they're there. It's just that the "progressive" or "leftist" brain-trust has no idea how to harness this energy.

Nobody appears capable of large-scale, strategic thinking. (I'm making myself an exception here. My problem is getting access to the resources that the plodders are in control of.)

Now, the vast majority of Canadians aren't even thinking about this shit. They're busy going about their lives; following the Olympics, listening to  Nicky Minaj or Lawrence Welk or whatever. But I sincerely believe that most of them are decent, intelligent people, who would be opposed to what harper was doing if they only knew. I believe principled, direct action, ... used intelligently, would actually mobilize a good deal of those people to at least support us.

But the disarray and delusion that I saw recently at the anti-harper rally, and the same factors that have the US progressive/left in their lowly state - and which degradations are on their way here if they aren't checked, do not make me optimistic.

Donate Money To The Opposition Parties

Ten bucks. Five bucks even.Encourage other people to do it. harper will be raising money hand-over-fist after his "Fucking With Elections Act" passes. If the opposition parties get inundated with small donations from all over, it will help them resist.

I'm going to be campaigning for my local Liberal Party candidate because the NDP here are a fucking joke. I still wish the Liberal Party of Canada would die. But they at least respect the institution of Parliament. If harper steals the next election (which a couple of bloggers are saying will be a surprise snap election) then this country is finished.

Went to a protest rally last night

It was a small, spur of the moment thing. The gutless coward stephen harper doesn't let people know his itinerary until the last minute, but CUPW keeps track and organizes protests wherever he is, just as a point of principle.

You know what? We should do to the corporations what the harpercons do to the unions. Especially those greedy, selfish assholes smashing their freight trains all across the country. And the meat packers too cheap to worry about basic hygiene. And the banks stiffing us all and then forcing their own employees to train their overseas replacements. And the Bay Street fraudsters gouging Canadians and their workplaces.

But we won't be able to even begin doing any of this until and unless we learn how the people can hold their political representatives accountable. Right now, we can't. Because last night, some First Nations people got to the megaphone and expressed their pain and I obviously don't begrudge them that. But let me tell you something; I had a room full of twenty-somethings a couple of weeks ago and I asked them if they'd heard about "Idle No More." They hadn't. They had no idea what it was. Flash mobs aren't going to force harper to do anything.

Then some white people got on the megaphones and recited their laundry lists of grievances and there were shouts of "Shame! Shame!" against stephen harper and then a rousing chorus of "The people, united, will never be defeated!" Then some CUPW types talked about the "fight back" against the harper government.

One guy shouted how we were ALL Canadians, one people, one set of laws. Totally oblivious to the protestations of the Idle No More contingent against his rant. Later, some libertarian twit took the microphone to denounce taxation as theft, causing the ONE PEOPLE - ALL CANADIAN guy to intervene; roaring BULLSHIT!!!! at him. The contingent of 50 people were showing their divisions.

That's why we get defeated.

The Ugly, Cretinous Head of "Conservatism"

Pierre Poopleevair, ... if you've got nothing to hide you should have nothing to fear. But of course, your "Fucking With Elections Act," crafted in secret and rammed through with minimal oversight, is a disgusting effort at vote suppression, fraud promotion and corruption enabling.

Chris Alexander, your immigration reform proposals are cynical, racist, totalitarian garbage. Call someone a "terrorist" and strip them of their citizenship? Even if they were born here? Then you call civil disobedience "terrorism" and Bob's your molesting uncle. What else could one have expected from a mental degenerate like Chris Alexander though?

Jimbo Flaherty ... the dunce says that he hasn't been following the latest Rob Ford scandals; "except for what's on television and in the news."  This fucking moron can't even grasp that watching and reading about Ford's boorishness is the very definition of "following" it. The shit-head then goes on to say that Ford should still be praised for getting Toronto's finances in order. Aside from the fact that they weren't out of order to begin with, and that Ford showed himself to be entirely ignorant and stupid with regards to the city's financial situation, fuck-head Flaherty has a point.

Rob Ford comes out and says he doesn't like homosexuals but brother Doug says that doesn't make him a homophobe. I'm sure it all makes sense in Doug's tiny brain. It's fascinating in a sick sort of way. The completely idiotic brother blurts something out and the merely stupid brother tries to interpret it for himself and we get to observe the glorious results of both.

stephen harper's swing bandmate is up on charges of sexual assault. That darn liberal media/police/courts/tantalizing young females conspiracy at work again!

Tim Hudak wants to impose "right-to-work" laws. Next on his agenda of Southern USA cultural imports is the enslavement of non-whites. Randy Hillier is salivating at the prospects.

How long, O' Lord, how long must we suffer????

Lil' stevie harper's Corrupt Petro-State

It's beyond ridiculous.

A CBC News investigation has unearthed a critical report that the federal regulator effectively buried for several years about a rupture on a trouble-prone TransCanada natural gas pipeline.

On July 20, 2009, the Peace River Mainline in northern Alberta exploded, sending 50-metre-tall flames into the air and razing a two-hectare wooded area.
...
Final reports are typically published by the investigative bodies, either the NEB or the Transportation Safety Board, but this report wasn’t released until this January when the CBC obtained it through an access-to-information request.

The NEB said the delay was caused by an “administrative error” when an employee left without transferring the file over.

TransCanada did not respond to a CBC request for an interview.

 What a steaming pile of total bullshit. Of course they don't want to be interviewed. They're already lying through their teeth. Exploding pipelines and derailing freight cars. All thanks to deregulation or self-regulation. This is a corporate petro-state ladies and gentlemen.

I hear that today, racist, stupid lazy pissant Pierre Polivierre is going to be releasing his secret election reform legislation. It will obviously be a travesty. 

And, we will continue to do nothing. We grumble about it, but we Canadians let the thieves run the joint.

The Super-Incompetence of stephen harper

Now, harper's never been much good at anything. For economic policy, the fact of the matter is that he's been coasting. Canada's economy was, for some reason, far more stable than that of the USA's. A big part of that was because harper hadn't yet been able to allow our financial sector to become as uncontrollably corrupt as the USA's. In the face of the present economic crisis, harper's content to stupidly indulge in a policy of austerity (albeit of lesser magnitude than the austerity of the Chretien-Martin years). The fruits of this brainless policy are beginning to show. Canada is running on empty.

But harper's a failure everywhere else. People die from tainted meat (again). The RCMP remains a disgrace. Our foreign reputation is in tatters (except with this idiot):

His Defense Minister, Peter MacKay, couldn't even organize the purchase of new trucks for the Canadian Forces. Announced in 2006, MacKay abruptly cancelled the process via email, three minutes before the bidding deadline, with no explanation.

Now it's our municipalities' turn. harper announced $14 billion in infrastructure spending in fuck-head Flaherty's last budget. It seems, however, that ramming in everything via massive omnibus bills and then focusing on the Senate Scandal (which in harper's case means sucking his thumb in the dark while everything goes to hell, or galavanting around the world on the taxpayers' dime) has produced the result of nobody bothering to tell the municipalities how much money they're each getting and for what purposes.

Canada's cities say with the construction season approaching there is an "urgent" need for the federal government to reveal the details of a new infrastructure plan scheduled to come into effect April 1, despite the fact that money from the new fund has already been promised to Toronto for the extension of a subway line.

The Conservatives announced in last year's federal budget $14 billion over 10 years in new infrastructure money under a new Building Canada Fund but the details have yet to be made public.

With the 2014 budget just over a week away and still no details about the new fund, cities say they are at risk of losing thousands of jobs that come with the construction season.

In an interview with CBC News, Vancouver City Councillor Raymond Louie said not only is time of the essence, but it's important the federal government get the details right

Nobody fucks it up like "conservative" morons. From Mike Harris to george w. bush, to Christy Clark, to stephen harper. I'm again reminded of the imbeciles of Free Dominion and the way their board's demise is mourned by the white supremacist yahoos of Storm Front. Expecting competence from these cretins is like expecting a newborn baby to wipe its ass.

And We Continue To Do Nothing

Obama is a cynical con-man. harper is contemptuous of parliamentary democracy. harper devastates science. Fantino insults veterans. Carbon emissions are increasing, not decreasing. Inequality runs rampant and the welfare state lives on fumes. Etc., etc., and so forth.

Some people put their faith in a political system that harper is continuing to sodomize with a splintery broomstick. A political system that barfs out the pretty-boy Justin Trudeau ("He beat Patrick Brazeau in a boxing match! He's prime minister material for sure!") and the centre-right, Zionist apologist, Thomas Mulcair as your options. (Oh, and the Greenies have Elizabeth May.)

Other people put their faith in some lazy, incoherent mishmash of pointless marches and rallies, coupled with rambling, pointless essays about how shitty everything is.

And never the twain shall meet.

We either embrace politics-as-usual or "radicalism"-as-usual.

And nothing happens. Either way, nothing happens. A corrupt, capitalist-dominated system won't change without genuine pressure and "genuine pressure" is a concept completely beyond the imaginations of those would can grasp that simple truth.

Shameless Stupidity of Julian Fantino

Since my last post on him, Fantino has decided to show off even more of his mad skills at being a complete asshole.

Turns out that the veterans who had come from all over Canada to try to talk him out of closing their local Veterans Affairs offices, and who were upset that he didn't attend the meeting, and who then expressed their disgust and anger with him when he bumped into them afterwards and gave them some attitude, ... weren't really in control of their thoughts and emotions at all.

No sirreee. They were DUPES of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). PSAC paid their way to Ottawa and put them up at a hotel (some of them are on fixed incomes now). So, you see, these veterans weren't really upset about he closure of their VA offices. They weren't really mad that Fantino missed their meeting. (My source for this is a Joe Warmington interview with Fantino in the Toronto SUN, which I try not to link to.) They weren't really enraged with his boorish, obnoxious, arrogant behaviour. The poor darlings didn't know what to think. PSAC put all those doubts about Fantino into the empty vessels that are their skulls. Fantino insists that nobody cares more than he does about veterans. (In all honesty, I despise the ease with which right-wing vermin like Fantino or Rob Ford will express how they're the bestest, mostest in the world on any particular issue.)

As I understand it now, Veterans Affairs treats veterans like shit anyway. I think the closing of the offices and the transferring of their duties will be like Dalton McGuinty's consolidation of Ontario government offices into ServOn branches. He reduced employees and resources in the process, which was the point of the exercise. Fantino's empty-headed, self-righteous, self-pitying drivel notwithstanding, I suspect the same thing is happening here.