Half Muppet, Half Mucus

PIFs and Why I`m So Neurotic

2009-11-09T18:27:00.003-03:00

When I first saw this video I had no idea what to expect. It reminds me of a video in which a happy group of teens are stopped by a police officer who is killed by a drunk driver who strikes him while he is standing by their car. I screamed like a schoolgirl the first two times I saw that one.

Next to road safety, a common favourite is workplace safety.

And finally that classic workplace PIF from WorkSafeBC, `The Supervisor.` I saw it at a workplace safety and health training session. At least this time, I knew that I was going to be shocked.

The whole use of the dead guy to narrate reminds me of `Pet Cemetary.`

2009-11-04T02:59:00.005-03:00

Nothing like a little well thought debate about the deeper issues of human existence . . . or you could act like these idiots.

New Maliciousness at York University Strike

2008-11-21T16:03:00.012-03:00

Please help Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903.

CUPE 3903 is currently in the second week of a strike and have been sideswiped by some 'unknown' cybersquatter who has registered the URL cupe3903.ca and pointing it towards the University's own web site.

While they pursue their complaint with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority [CIRA], they're attempting to improve the ranking of their provisional website on Google so that people searching for information about the York University strike find their side of the situation and not just the Administration's ducktalk or websites belonging to anti-strike student groups.

Until they can get their URL back, they are attempting to enhance search engine rankings for their new page by using inbound links. The more websites that link to www.3903strike.ca the better . . . and even more than quantity of links are quality. If they can get popular sites to link the new page, the more Google will promote their new page! [As V.I. Lenin once said, there is a certain quality in quantity.]

Please put a link to the real CUPE 3903 site [www.3903strike.ca] on your website or blog using "York University strike information" as the link text.

The strongest oak must fall/ The sweet things in life/ To you were just loaned.

2008-10-28T12:19:00.004-03:00

Given the current situation, I've been cheering myself up recently by reading about the Great Depression. Like us,they had self-serving idiots in power but, for the most part, everybody survived (until WWII came along and 'fixed' the economic downturn and population pressures). Two books that I especially found myself drawn to were Studs Terkel's Hard Times and James Grey's The Winter Years. Different styles and different countries but both straightforward and though provoking reads.

Terkel leads off his chapter on the high life with this classic written by Lew Brown in 1931 which is as relevant now as then.

'Life is just a bowl of cherries,
Don't take it too serious,
Life's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go-go-go,
So keep repeating it's just the berries.
The strongest oak must fall.
The sweet things in life,
To you were just loaned,
So how can you lose what you've never owned.
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
So live and laugh at it all.'

Why did Stevenson Lose His Bid for the Presidency?

2008-10-26T16:40:00.003-03:00

"In America, anybody may become president, and I suppose it's just one of the risks you take." - Adlai Stevenson

Nobody likes a smartass. They'd rather vote for somebody dumber than them. Hell, I work for somebody dumber than me and I wouldn't vote for them unless I could pick their execution method. Why in God's name would you want somebody lower than you on the Great Chain of IQ deciding anything important?? The Stupids should be left to what they do best (like sweeping floors or plunging toilets) and not running for the highest (and second highest) office in the land.

Picturing McCain and Palin in office is like some kind of nightmarish version of Dumb and Dumber come to life.

Good for Jonathan, Bad for the Devil

2008-10-26T15:33:00.005-03:00

According to the CBC website, "In honour of Halloween, Jonathan Goldstein has a conversation with . . . the Devil."

I wonder who's going to get the worse end of this conversation??

My prediction is that the Prince of Darkness will probably be sitting in the corner hacking away at his wrists with a razor blade after about ten minutes of Goldstein's self-consciously clever banter.

Well, maybe fifteen minutes, tops.

WWGCD?

2008-10-08T20:58:00.015-04:00

George Carlin: Education and the Owners of America 4:41

Man, I really found myself getting all verklempt when I watched this on YouTube.

George hits the nail on the head and he hits it really damn hard. Things are really going to Hell in a colostomy bag right about now and the public is too stupid or apathetic to do anything about it. But it's not just normal stupidity that keeps them down, it's stupidity that is actually built into the system to keep people from questioning why everything is so screwed up. Nothing like the fact that the captains of business are driving the economy like a bunch of drunken teenagers with a stolen vehicle to keep the public distracted from the bigger picture. And then there are those military conflicts that the US keeps getting into... (And now Palin wants to get into a scrap with Russia. Jesus H. Christ, pick one fight at a time ... and try to stick to small countries that can't fight back. Like Iraq. Wait, lets try that again. Like Iran. Or Russia. Maybe the US should finally give into their imperialist instincts and invade Canada again. The last effort didn't go so well but I'm sure some downsized Wall Street spin doctor could rationalize it to the rest of the world.)

The facts that Carlin presents are structured like stand up comedy but you can't do much but chuckle nervously because you know that they're all too true. As George said, "They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street." Our benevolent employers, who established retirement plans for their employees have suddenly decided to unpack them and take back their contributions. It's only slightly less appalling than Wal-Marts abuse of the dead peasant laws in the US of A to profit from their employees dieing.

What would George Carlin do? More importantly, what would he have to say about last weeks bail out of Wall Street? Bush and his cronies have really put the biscuit wheels on the gravy train one last time. Most presidents make some attempt to leave a legacy but Bush just appears to be trying to milk the American public one last time before the ride him our on a rail.

The legacy of the Bush administration is going to be one of jobbery and ineptitude writ large. And if things go really wrong America will see even more maverick economics courtesy of John McCain. I was looking at a textbook on white collar crime today and happened to notice that McCain played a supporting role in the Charles Keating S & L deregulation scandal in the 1980s. McCain didn't care about the American workers any more twenty-five years ago than he does today.

Right on the Verge of Blasphemy. Wait ... I Guess it is Blasphemous after All.

2008-06-05T20:49:00.004-04:00

Dr. Seuss Bible [2:29]

'The one you can worship by taking a snooze.'

You definitely can tell who your friends are by who censors you. The Kids in the Hall were/are so damn cool...especially their take on how Dr. Suess would describe the life of Christ.

Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton, SNL Style

2008-05-19T19:14:00.008-04:00

'Barack Obama' and 'Hillary Clinton' summarize the circular firing squad that the Democratic party has degenerated into over the past months in a pseudo-advertisement [1:18]

Those Damn Funny Apes at The Onion!

2008-05-07T16:26:00.008-04:00

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters [2:24]

I hate to say it, but this video sums up the current state of electoral politics in North America all too well. Democracy, as it is practiced here, has little meaning because no major changes are going to be implemented by the government that don't going to screw the citizenry over.

Like when Adlai Stevenson was running for the presidency in 1956 and a supporter observed that he had the vote of every thinking man in America. Stevenson thanked them and then unwisely quipped that he still needed the majority of votes to win.

Contemporary elections are like a high school popularity contest staged in hell. Each candidate attempts to outsmart the others without actually saying anything.

I'm Too Lazy to Think, But Monty Python is Still Hilarious.

2008-05-06T20:29:00.004-04:00

And now, a bunch of random Monty Python quotes.

Why, you may ask.

Because they're funny, of course.

‘They should attack the lower classes, first with bombs and rockets to destroy their homes, and then when they run helpless into the street, mow them down with machine guns. And then, of course, release the vultures. I know these views aren’t popular, but I have never thought of popularity.’
- Stockbroker [John Cleese]

‘Are you nervous? Irritable? Depressed? Tired of life? Keep it up!’
- Enterprising undertaker [Terry Jones]

‘We must never forget that, if there was not one thing that was not on top of another thing, our society would be nothing more than a meaningless body of men gathered together for no good reason.’
- President, Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things [Graham Chapman]

‘Never kill a customer.’
- Head Waiter [Michael Palin] to the cook

‘One day you’ll realize there’s more to life than culture! There’s dirt, and smoke, and good honest sweat!’
- Ken [Eric Idle] to his playwright/father

‘Kids were different then. They didn’t have their heads filled with all this Cartesian Dualism…’
- April Simnel [Michael Palin], neighbour of the Piranha Brothers

‘Using this diagram of a tooth to represent any small country, we can see how international communism works, by eroding away from the inside. When one country or tooth falls victim to international communism, the others soon follow. In dentistry, this is known as the Domino Theory.’
- Uncle Sam [animated]

‘I don’t think any of our contestants this evening have succeeded in encapsulating the intricacies of Proust’s masterwork, so I’m going to award the first prize this evening to the girl with the biggest tits.’
- Arthur Me [Terry Jones]

‘If that idea of yours isn’t worth a pound, I’d like to know what is. The only trouble is, you gave me the idea before I’d given you the pound, and that’s not good business!’
- Merchant Banker [John Cleese]

...as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.

2008-05-05T14:12:00.006-04:00

'I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; - but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD.'

The preceding words were penned by William Lloyd Garrison, the 'Golden Trumpet of Abolition', in the 1 January 1831 debut issue of The Liberator. The Liberator ran for 35 years [until the end of the American Civil War in, as you already know, 1865], mobilizing the disparate forces of the anti-slavery movement across the northern states.

On 3 December 1964, Mario Savio, arguably the most noteworthy of the spokespersons for the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, observed that:

'There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!'

Then I go look at my all-too-humble little blog where I discuss what I had for breakfast and I get really damn depressed.

Intro to Lord of War [3:23]

2008-05-05T12:01:00.002-04:00

Well, what can I possibly say about Nicolas Cage that hasn't already been said? He destroyed two films last year [Ghost Rider and the utterly abysmal remake of The Wicker Man] but every once in a while he puts his name on a good film.

This is the introduction to one of them.

May Day!

2008-05-01T23:22:00.006-04:00

It's that time of the year again! It's May Day!!

Knowing full well that workers in other countries don't even enjoy the luxury of celebrating this day, I wandered down to the the local May Day parade/march/spectacle to watch events unfold. A strangely diverse number of groups came together to celebrate. Some of it was predictable, by-the-numbers street theatre but the anarchist marching band was a real improvement over previous musical efforts.

I might as well give in and celebrate the seductive allure of the REAL working class holiday [as opposed to so-called Labour Day, which sold out to the miltary-industrial complex ages ago] and add a few of the classic hymns of the European proletariat to my blog.

***

The Internationale
Eugene Pottier and Pierre Degeyter [1871]

Arise ye pris’ners of starvation
Arise ye wretched of the earth.
For justice thunders condemnation
A better world’s in birth.
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us,
Arise ye slaves no more in thrall.
The earth shall rise on new foundations
We have been naught, we shall be all.

CHORUS:
‘Tis the final conflict
let each stand in their place
The Internationale shall be the human race.
‘Tis the final conflict
let each stand in their place
The Internationale shall be the human race.

The law oppresses us and tricks us,
The wage slave system drains our blood,
The rich are free from obligations,
The poor the laws delude.
Too long we’ve languished in subjugation,
Equality has other laws;
‘No rights,’ says she, ‘without their duties.
No claims on equals without cause.’

Behold them seated in their glory,
The kings of mine and rail and soil.
What have you read in all their story,
but how they plundered toil.
Fruits of the workers' toil are buried
in strongholds of the idle few;
In working for our restitution
We claim our rightful due.

***

Solidarity Forever
Ralph Chaplin [1915]

When the union’s inspiration through the worker’s blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

It is we who ploughed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroads laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong.

All the world that’s owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled earned to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.

We’re the women of the union in
the forefront of the fight,
We know of women’s issues, we
know of women’s rights,
We’re prepared to fight for freedom,
we’re prepared to stand our ground,
Women make the union makes the union strong.

***

Or, as the late Abbie Hoffman observed in his 1982 book Soon to be a Major Motion Picture:

'Morality seems to enter the picture only when individuals interact with each other. It's universally wrong to steal from your neighbor but once you get beyond the one-to-one level and pit the individual against the multinational conglomerate, the federal bureaucracy, the modern plantation agro-business, or the utility company, it becomes strictly a value judgment to decide who exactly is stealing from whom. One person's crime is another person's profit. Capitalism is a license to steal; the government simply regulates who steals and how much.'

A History of Evil [5:40]

2008-04-09T01:56:00.000-04:00

Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead. Wait, Make That Charlton Heston has Finally Kicked the Bucket.

2008-04-06T10:07:00.007-04:00

According to Reuters, Hollywood legend and neocon icon Charlton Heston is dead at age 84.

If God is, as all good Republicans appear to believe, a 70-year old white Republican male from Iowa, they ought to get along just fine. I imagine Chas has a few words of advice for the big guy on where He went wrong ['First, hit that fat fuck Michael Moore with a lightning bolt and take out that Obama fellow ...']

At least this gives gun-control advocates to finally pry Heston's flintlock rifle from his 'cold, dead hands.' Or maybe the feds can use eminent domain to claim Heston's personal armory and send it where they need more firepower like Iraq. Or those attitudinal French. Or, now that I think about it, maybe even Canada.

I Feel Like I Just Got Second Prize in the 'Francis-Grady's-Not-Such-A-Bad-Bastard' Award

2008-03-31T21:23:00.007-04:00

Hell's Bells.

I've just come from my union local's Annual General Meeting where I was elected president for the coming year.

As things turned out, my competition was unable to stand for election because he is a member but not a member in good standing. [He is indeed a member, which means that he has worked for the employer over the past twelve months but being a member in good standing means that he has actually perfomed productive labour in the past four months.] If a member with standing runs for office unopposed the Board can appoint them. If a member in good standing runs, however, they automatically lose.

While technicalities such as these seem trivial, he was assuming that he would automatically be appointed by the outgoing board because no-one in their right mind would dare to challenge him.

Conveniently, I have been so sleep deprived over the past month that I am no longer operating in my right mind.

This led to much angry recrimination after the meeting that the by-laws are outdated and obviously irrelevant because he didn't win. As I've known him in a professional capacity for the past eighteen months, I must say that his hissy simultaneously made me feel bad for him but also glad that I ran against such a poor loser that he would go and whine to our union rep after the meeting.

I only ran after a great deal of thought but was still prepared to lose if the vox populi went against me.

Hell, beyond is impromptu rant to the union rep, he also had the nerve to snub me before and after the meeting.

Actually, I suppose this was a fairly painless introduction to hardball union politics because it could have been way, way worse.

My only concern is that he is going to be a real pain in the ass over the next couple of months. Only time will tell, but hopefully he will get distracted by his job and family and quit busting my balls for being an dirty rotten, evil, Machiavellian son-of-a-bitch.

Not for Everyone, for Madmen Only.

2008-03-21T15:29:00.006-04:00

I normally avoid CNN because ... because ... well, because CNN is to journalism what ordure is to nutritious food. Watching CNN is like going to an all-you-can-eat feast hosted the hugely-litigious purveyor of fast food with the Scottish name. But occasionally even CNN does something worthy of note.

On Wednesday night, former Republican presidential candidate [and Harold Stassen stand-in] Bob Dole defended current White House hopeful John McCain on the Larry King show. While admitting that McClain indeed had a temper, Dole thoughtfully added that the Arizona senator 'can control it.'

Voting is a challenge at the best of times but knowing that you're potentially voting for someone would have their anger management coach appointed to the federal bureaucracy should give even the most die hard Republican pause for reflection ... but it is unlikely to.

Looking at what the American government has already done over the past eight years with a pseudo-soldier at the helm, I don't even want to know what they would attempt with a former P.O.W. with anger management issues in the driver's seat.

And, on a lighter note, I'm posting a clipping from the L.A. Times, that respected academic publication. Not sure of the exact providence of it, but I believe that it is two or three years old. Despite that, even the potential for the U.S. Army to opt out of the Geneva Convention is troubling.

China Banned http://www.marxism.com! What's Up Next for Worker's Paradise?

2008-03-20T00:11:00.024-04:00

Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society [part of the Harvard Law School] kept tabs on the websites that the Chinese authorities were keeping tabs on between August 2002 and November 2003.

The individual sites that were targeted can be found at Inaccessible Sites Tested by Users of the Real-Time Testing System along with a few observations as to why these sites have been censored in the first place. While some might be obvious, others less so. [Issues of aesthetics or good taste aside, why would they bother to censor granny porn sites??]

A recent article in The Atlantic observed that China's 'Golden Shield Project' [as the Internet firewall is known] allows for government authorities to monitor all Internet traffic going in or out of the country in a way that would be impossible in other nations thanks to a series of 'choke-points' created by the layout of China's phone service. A consequence of this technological bottle-neck has been China has been able to block videos on the Tibetan protest movement posted on YouTube while being unable to completely stop the flow of information related to Tibet from moving into and out of China, thanks in part to bloggers and others using spam tactics to bypass Chinese filters.

With the upcoming Olympics and the ongoing issues in Tibet, censorship can only get worse ... both in China and over here.

Despite all this, it is still [allegedly] possible to get outside news into the Worker's Paradise through a number of Transwiki: Bypassing the Great Firewall of China.

Anyhow, this might provide me with my big chance to get my own blog blocked by the Chinese authorities by passing on the following message from Play Fair 2008:

'Play Fair 2008 is an international campaign taking place in the lead up to the 2008 Olympic Games to push for respect for workers’ rights in the global sporting goods industry.'

'Play Fair 2008 is organized by The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Worker’s Federation (ITGLWF). The campaign is also supported by a diverse coalition of organizations worldwide.'

'We believe that sportswear and athletic footwear companies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), National Olympics Committees, as well as national governments must take steps to eliminate the exploitation and abuse of workers in the global sporting goods industry.'

2008-03-19T23:23:00.004-04:00

I suppose I shouldn't encourage people to leave my blog but Free Rice is totally addictive in a nerdy, social justice-y kind of way.

You pick the right definition for a word and the sponsors give 20 grains of rice per successful pick to the UN World Food Program. Like everything else in life, everything counts in large amounts. [I've just quoted Depeche Mode. I feel ill.]

Since you insist on bathing in the warming glow of your monitor, you might as well help somebody else out while building your vocabulary up at the same time.

But first, please feel free to look around my all-too humble excuse for a blog.

Also, please note that none of this refers to Nitroglycol, who is already a little too smart for his own damn good.

Just a Touch Pissed-Off, I Suppose.

2008-03-19T22:47:00.006-04:00

This coming Tuesday [March 25th] marks the 97th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City. In the worst loss of human life during a single incident [until 9/11, of course], 148 of the women who worked in the sweatshop were given the odious choice of either burning to death or jumping the nine floors to the ground.

The owners of the sweatshop [as I discovered in a highly educational book on litigation] escaped both the fire itself [by sneaking out before the fire got too bad] and justice [by paying the worker's families paltry sums of cash, political connections, and hiring the best trial lawyer that blood money could buy].

... and, 97 years later, exactly what have we learned?

When you ask people about organizing their workplace, they act as if the role of the manager is to protect them from the big, bad union.

Hell, most employers would probably harvest your organs for beer money if they could find a way to keep you working sans your viscera.

But now the stakes are greater and the world is a whole lot smaller and so the fight continues.

2008-02-06T01:03:00.000-03:00

I'll have to follow up on these predictions from Redstate.com
as to the fallout of Super Tuesday.

'But there are three points that I think will likely emerge as the night goes on:

1. McCain will not lock this up tonight. He'll have to go on to win Virginia and likely all the way to Texas, but if the exit polls hold, he has to hope that Huckabee - who's played his wingman for about the past three weeks - continues to play nice and is content to coast to being the Last Action Hero's Veep.

2. Romney continues to perform horribly in the South, despite having a ton of endorsements and a very good campaign organization. The South is still the most personality-driven political arena in America, and there are some things that not even money and machines can overcome. I don't think he's going to get enough momentum out of the West to change that in the coming primaries.

3. I respect Dr. Dobson more than a lot of other folks, but the idea of releasing a statement that he'll stay home and won't vote in a McCain-Clinton election this late in the game indicates to me that he isn't all that enthused about throwing support to Huckabee or Romney. Had Dobson announced this a week ago, he would've had a definite impact today, and moved a few key points to whoever he wished. But by waiting and making this a non-factor, I think it's a sign that as much as he dislikes McCain, Dobson is resigned to the fact that he's the likeliest nominee.

My prescription for getting through the night: I recommend strong bourbon and a large dose of Michael Barone and Karl Rove.'

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Intelligence of the Voting Public

2008-02-05T17:41:00.003-03:00

Once again, here we are.

Call it what you will ... Super Tuesday, Super Duper Tuesday, Giga Tuesday, Tsunami Tuesday or the Tuesday of Destiny.

When the greatest total number of states hold their primary elections to elect their delegates to the national conventions at which each party's presidential candidates are officially nominated.

It's pucker-time for the wanna-be alpha males across the United States.

Of course, if things go wrong they'll have to settle for less, much as they've been doing for the past 232 years.

Supersizing Gone Wild!

2008-02-04T15:41:00.000-03:00

Damned if I know what to say about this.

This video demonstrates a young man's attempts to eat a burger composed of the equivalent of 8 McDonald's Quarter Pounders - a DOUBLE POUNDER! This video clip is essentially porno for carniviores.

Maybe they should consider giving inmates on Death Row in the U.S. a diet of these babies until all their appeals are worn out. They would die full, happy and very, very quickly.

Super Bowl Madness, Revised

2008-02-04T14:58:00.000-03:00

OFFICIAL RELEASE FROM THE MINISTRY OF CHEAP THRILLS:

All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy victory of the Giants over the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII which his wise leadership has bestowed upon us.

Super Bowl Madness

2008-02-04T02:36:00.000-03:00

Good news about the Super Bowl. Apparently somebody won.

Surrounded by Humanoids

2008-02-04T01:44:00.001-03:00

The other day, while I was killing time at a junk store, I found an object made of two three-inch nails bent around each other - kind of like a metal pretzel. Assuming that they must represent some form of puzzle, I began attempting to separate them [thereby proving my superiority over the humanoids surrounding me] when it suddenly dawned on me that no solution may actually exist for this problem ... what I was holding may well represent the obscure cast-off remainder of some unknown industrial manufacturing process. The only reason for the hope of a solution was the projection of my own need for a solution into the situation. On that thought, I put my new 'toy' down and continued on with my perusing through the other 'pre-enjoyed' objects.

This is, at a microscale, what I constantly fear is happening across the planet right now. We, as a species, always assume that we will eventually figure out the solution to the big problems because problems, by there very nature, must have solutions. [I believe that James Lovelock's observed that Gaia, the planet as a whole, will continue to survive but H. sapiens, on the other hand, cannot automatically assume their that continued survival is guaranteed under the current system.]

***

Well, I can't take the credit for any of these but I liked them enough to post them. They are all the work of Robert 'Banksy' Banks, the British graffiti/graphic artist and bon vivant. Banks has a number of samples of his work, both indoor and outdoor, at his site as well as a bit of info on himself.

2008-01-24T16:00:00.001-03:00

Well, the world is still a wretched hive of scum and villainy and blogging is even less cool now than it was when I stopped posting, so I guess that I'll start this thing up again.

Cheers!

Politicians [and Other Rodents] Gone Wild!

2007-04-03T17:48:00.000-04:00

It seems that Canadian politicians have finally discovered the Internet and, more specifically, the power of posting video on YouTube. Over the past couple of months an increasing number of posts have been uploaded mocking politicians of the various parties.

The most recent posting was on 31 March 2007 and was taken at an 'open house' being held by Conservative Party Member of Parliament Ron Cannan [Kelowna-Lake Country, BC]. As this video demonstrates, not only do Tories have difficulty understanding the concept of peace, social justice, or concern for the well-being of others ... they don't even understand the meaning of open house!

Ron Cannan Open House - Conservatives Only [7:31]

Given the difficulty that the Tories have had with consistency and communication recently, I'm surprised that the poster announcing the open house wasn't on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'

Despite this atypical burst of aggression, Canadian politicians have traditionally lacked the killer instinct possessed by our neighbours to the south that allows them to leap into the gutter at the drop of a hat and sling mud with reckless abandon. With the lone exception of one ad in the early 1990s [You know, the one that used Jean Chretien's facial palsy to make him look like a gargoyle], we have a little bit too much restraint for that. And that's why elections are no damn fun in Canada.

Despite that, MP Mark Holland [Ajax-Pickering, ON] does his best to trash talk the Conservatives for taking illegal donations.

Mark Holland Exposes Illegal Conservative Donations [3:25]

And, naturally enough, when you spend enough time thinking about politicians you find your thoughts drifting to thoughts of ... rats. Lots and lots and lots of rats. A whole KFC/Taco Bell FULL OF RATS, in fact!

Rats Take Over KFC/Taco Bell [2:00]

But if you think this is bad, just wait until fast food restaurants become infested by something really unpleasant ... like politicians! Just you wait and see, it could happen yet! And then I'll find myself running along the highway warning oblivious commuters of the danger, just like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. [Or I might just be lazy and stay home.]

On the other hand, maybe we should try to see this as a golden business opportunity and not just an infestation of filthy, disease-laden vermin. If the owners could find small enough aprons and tiny, tiny little utensils, they could recruit our little Rodent-American 'friends' and train then to find rewarding employment in the service industry sector. ['Would you like Yersinia pestis with that, sir/madame?'] After all, they don't sleep much, they reproduce rapidly and copiously, and would be more than likely to be willing to accept old deep-frier grease and floor sweepings in lieu of an hourly salary. Hell, rats would be totally exempt from labour laws regarding minimum wage and overtime and the like. I'm surprised that dubya [or Stephen Harper] haven't tabled legislation on this already. I believe that I'm going to phone the Donald about this opportunity of a lifetime right now.

Seduction of the Indolent?

2007-03-27T15:50:00.002-04:00

Providing proof positive that Americans have needed to delude themselves as far back as the late 1940s about the world, the following 'educational’ shorts were used to seduce unsophisticated moviegoers. These 'classics' were produced in 1948 [‘Make Mine Freedom’] and 1951 [‘Communism’]. The first short is unusual because, despite its high production values, it was a product of Harding College, a private Christian university located in Searcy, Arkansas.

Anti-Communist Propaganda [9:30]

American Propaganda 1951: Communism [10:40]

Both videos demonstrate the zeitgeist possessing America in the 1950s [and which appears to be back again in force], when anything was possible and saying 'America, my country right or wrong' didn't sound near as trite as it does now. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Random Media, Part 87

2007-03-25T23:55:00.002-04:00

The full version of this interview was even stranger because Wolf Blitzer just kept agreeing with the Donald as he went on venting about how dubya was the WORST President EVER. Trump correctly pointed out that the current administrations actions has resulted in nations traditionally allied with America to begin distancing themselves while neutral nations have begun to appear to dislike the US. He went on to suggest that the only viable solution for the ongoing debacle in Iraq is for America to declare victory and then immediately withdraw everything. [Like the 1970s t-shirt slogan' 'Do Unto Others, Then Split'] While this initially sounds absurd, it makes about as much sense as attempting to occupy Iraq for another decade or two.

The Donald Fires Off [73 sec.]

The Donald Fires Off - Funny home videos are a click away

And on a slightly different note, this video presents Mankiw's 10 principles of economics translated for the uninitiated [i.e. everyone without a PhD in economics] by Yoram Bauman. Originally filmed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference session on humour [16 February 2007], this presentation was based on an article first published in The Annals of Improbable Research. The paper also goes on to provide a "constructive example" of how the exchange process can actually serve to make everyone involved worse off.

Principles of Economics, Translated [5:20]

For more material along the same line, please go to The Standup Economist.

On a slightly different note, the following video provides advice for aspiring young Marxists. The use of public source material and the Internet, while arguably technologically elitist, still allows for individuals who would otherwise be unable to connect to communicate. In the dark age ahead, communication will be central. The use of public source material is equally of use for the frugal radical but I suspect that if Bakunin were alive today, his take on the matter would be that 'Intellectual property is theft!'

A Guide for New Marxists [1:10]

I suppose the mere presence of this on my blog is enough to make certain members of Rabble turn me in to the proper authorities for 'head fixing.'

A Spectre is Haunting Europe -- the Spectre of Communism

2007-03-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

Cartoons of the World, Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose but your Animators!

In a unique homage to the potential for subversion in the celluloid medium, Manifestoon assembles a number of classic cartoons from the Golden Age of cartooning between the 1930s and the 1950s to graphically illustrate The Communist Manifesto.

Manifestoon [8:17]

While American cartoons [specifically the work of Walt Disney's cartoon assembly line] have tended to be viewed as being merely a handmaiden to the fundamental capitalist virtues of consumerism, individualism and private property [See Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart’s How To Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic for deeper analysis], the creator of Manifestoon believes that "these ideas were secondary to a more important lesson — that of the 'trickster' nature of many characters as they mocked, outwitted and defeated their more powerful adversaries. In the classic cartoon, brute strength and heavy artillery are no match for wit and humour, and justice always prevails ... it was natural to link my own childhood concept of subversion with an established, more articulate version. Mickey running over the globe has new meaning in today's mediascape, in which Disney controls one of the largest concentrations of media."

2007-03-22T15:22:00.000-04:00

Just a brief follow up to 10 March 2007 posting ['More of the Same in British Columbia'] regarding Betty Krawczyk's questionable treatment by the BC court system.

She has been sentenced to ten months in the Alouette Correctional Center for Women in Maple Ridge, BC.

Betty will continue posting a blog to document her ongoing situation. The blog can be found at Betty's Early Edition.

You Can't Hug a Child with Nuclear Arms

2007-03-21T18:28:00.001-04:00

Protect and Survive - Nuclear Explosions Explained [1:29]

If you are netsurfing and a nuclear bomb detonates in your neighbourhood, you might want to give the following PIF a quick watch. [In case you came of age in the 1990s, PIF means Public Information Film. Apparently there are plans to start making updated PIFS that take the 'new realities' into consideration] Then go put out the bonfire that is your house, talk some sense into those nasty looters in front of what used to be your house, quickly dig a hole for shelter [or body disposal] behind what used to be your house, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Protect and Survive - What To Do After An Attack [2:31]

Despite the timeless wisdom that these highly entertaining and informational videos were attempting to impart me with, I couldn't help but think that during a nuclear exchange everyone I knew was going to die and the only survivors would be the politicians and military elite who started the whole damned thing in the first place. Oh, Karma where are thou?

Luckily, things are far less stable now and I don't have to worry about those nasty Russians dropping a few dozen megs on my humble chunk of the world. My only worry now is that rogue states might use nuclear, biological and/or chemical weapons, my own government will plan something weird, or the USA will make a serious grab for Canadian territory. [Please see War Plan Red - 'A 1935 US Plan for Invasion of Canada'] for confirmation that I'm not paranoid as I sound. And as ancient as War Plan Red sounds, the earliest invasion of Canada was proposed by Benedict Arnold in 1775. Later invasions took place in 1812, and smaller invasions were led by the Hunters' Lodges during the Patriot War [1837-1838] and the Battle of the Windmill [1838]. Finally, the Fenian's launched a series of raids against Canada between 1866-1871.

What Can I Say About Ann Coulter That Hasn't Already Been Said??

2007-03-19T16:15:00.000-04:00

'Basically .. um .. it is like California with Baghdad as L.A..."
- Ann Coulter pithily summarizing the ongoing situation in Iraq.

California Dreaming? [1:34]

I'm increasingly getting the feeling that I'm watching Ann Coulter do a parody of herself when she does her 'commentaries'. I assume that when she does her the 'Ugly American' routine it's as if she's deliberately trying to stir up controversy and thus increase her own marketability at the same time. Then again, maybe she actually believes the nonsense that she's spewing. I'm not sure which idea is more troubling.

Bipartisan Politics and the Green Mind

2007-03-19T01:04:00.002-04:00

Why is it proven so difficult for individuals with an interest in the environment to avoid being tagged as being fringe-dwellers or eccentrics? And why have the green efforts that have been adopted been neutered so readily? At what point does 'buying into' the System become 'selling-out' to the System? [Or is it all just semantic hopefulness if the System, given its basic instincts and logic, proves that it can never be trusted??] Might it do the ecology movement more harm than good if the movement collectively embraced the virtues of patriotism, thereby depriving those who have been traditional less ecologically-minded of their soapbox. After all, what is better for our nation and those within than actually having a functioning planet to live on? Or would embracing patriotism risk simultaneously incorporating the more unsavory elements of nationalism into the environmental movement? After all, many of the problems currently being experienced in the environment are derived from the colonialism that occurred as part of the industrial capitalism in the late 18th century. [Not to say that the world was a verdant paradise before the first halting steps at primitive accumulation of capital and mercantile capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the commodification and proletariatization were more destructive a force on the collective psyche then any event either prior or since.]

It has been said that only fools fight in a burning building and, looking at current events, I do believe that we have been sleeping through the our wake-up call.

For more information about the cartoon, please see Rustle the Leaf.

2007-03-15T18:31:00.000-04:00

Tarbaby- 6 Million Years of Evolution in 1.2 minutes [1:22]

For further information, please go to Arcturus Design

The World's Worst Best Kept Secret

2007-03-13T13:51:00.000-04:00

Should it come as any surprise that a time-honoured and pernicious institution such as slavery is alive and well and living in the developed world?? It is difficult to avoid news reports that remind us how the slave trade is still thriving across the developed world but a recent study reveals that slavery is a lot closer to home than is comfortable. While the nations in the so-called First World already have a lot to explain than just the traditional wage-slavery that most workers are forced into under industrial capitalism.

The struggle against slavery still exists in many forms and locations today. Racially-based chattel slavery has the closest resemblance to 'slavery' as practiced in the United States until 1865 and is still practiced in Sudan and Mauritania today. In other parts of the world, debt bondage enslaves entire families. Some families are forced to give up their children as payment of this debt. Factory workers in Pakistan, charcoal burners in South and Central America, and tenant farmers in the Indian subcontinent are all forced to offer up their productive labour as collateral against a loan which they can never hope to work off. This process commonly also entraps their children as well. Beyond mere debt slavery, however, the murky realm of child slavery, child sex slavery, and trafficking of sex trade workers from the developing nations to the developed nations of the West.

Contemporary Slavery in the UK: Overview and Key Issues
By Gary Craig, Aline Gaus, Mick Wilkinson, Klara Skrivankova and Aidan McQuade

A report recently released as part of a joint research project by the University of Hull [UK] and Anti-Slavery International for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation [JRF] confirms that slavery continues to exist in the United Kingdom as well as being prohibited under international law. While the UK marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the legal slave trade in Britain and her colonies, the new report examines modern forms of slavery, how it operates in the UK, and a detailed account of the circumstances faced by those who are enslaved.

[With the bicentenary of the British abolition of the pernicious trade in humans upon us this year the finest thing that could be done to commemorate it would be to revive the passion of the 19th century abolitionist and end the trade once and for all.]

[Ironically, the humanitarian and philanthropist Joseph Rowntree had a great zeal regarding the conditions of his English workers but has has much to account for regarding the conditions under which chocolate was, and still is, harvested in Africa. For more information, please see Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet by Carol Off for more information]

The report shows that the contemporary slave trade in the UK operates in different forms, particularly as a result of trafficking. The different forms share an underlying exploitative relationship that has historically constituted slavery [e.g. severe and prolonged economic exploitation; lack of a human rights framework; and one individual maintaining absolute control over another through either the threat of violence or actual violence.]

About Human Trafficking [1:30]

David Batstone on Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery [4:55]

To view the video in its entirety, please go to FORA.tv

"The Little Guy'll Always Win...' Part 2

2007-03-13T00:44:00.000-04:00

A moment of sanity in an otherwise frustrating and confusing world. CBC News has reported that Kevin Yourdkhani and his parents will be returning back to Canada at some point in the indeterminate future.

Family detained in U.S. granted permit to enter Canada
[CBC News as of 12 March 2007|6:01 PM EST]

"An Iranian couple and their nine-year-old Canadian son who have been held in a Texas detention centre have been given temporary residency permits to enter Canada. A spokesman for Immigration and Citizenship Minister Diane Finley said Monday the minister granted the permit because it was in the best interest of the boy.

Kevin's parents, Majid and Masomeh, (they've asked that their last names be withheld) first arrived in Canada 10 years ago seeking asylum, but were unsuccessful and were deported to Iran in December 2005. Kevin was born as they lived in Canada.

The parents said they faced torture in Iran and made another attempt to seek refuge in Canada with the use of stolen Greek passports. But on a flight to Toronto from Guyana on Feb. 4, a passenger suffered a heart attack and died, causing the plane to be diverted to Puerto Rico.

U.S. officials discovered their false documents and detained the family for five days before sending them to the T. Don Hutto detention centre near Austin, Texas, a converted medium-security prison that has been condemned by human rights groups and is the subject of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

A lawyer for the family says it will now fall to the Canadian and U.S. governments to negotiate the family's transfer to Canada."

On a side note, I just discovered that I've been misquoting one of the Texas Rangers unofficial mottoes, "No man in the wrong can stand up to a fellow that's in the right and keeps on a-comin'" I guess it was just that Abbie Hoffman's version seemed more appropriate in this situation.

More of the Same in British Columbia

2007-03-10T02:28:00.000-03:00

Sometimes it's difficult to watch so-called justice get meted out. An axiom of the legal profession observes that not only must justice be done, it must appear to be done as well. Bearing this in mind, some cases conclude themselves in such dubious manner that the conduct of the legal system [especially it's alleged 'neutrality' and 'impartiality'], as a whole, is thrown into question. [While Otto von Bismarck was correct in his assertion that 'to retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making,' he neglected that the agents of the court can directly affect citizens whether or not they respect its validity and/or moral authority]

On 24 January 2007, Provincial Court Justice Brenda Brown sentenced 16 of 25 protesters with contempt of court. The judge approved an out of court settlement for nine of the accused [$250 penalty or 25 hours community service and $1,000 legal in legal costs], while singling out the remaining six protesters for significantly higher penalties [$5,000 penalty or 250 hours community service and $1,000 in legal costs].

Judge Brown sentenced 71 year old First Nation elder Harriet Nahanee to 14 days in jail for refusing to apologize to the courts for her actions [e.g. contempt of court]. Despite several preexisting chronic medical conditions, Harriet was sent to Surrey Pretrial Centre. It is now believed that she developed pneumonia during her incarceration and was admitted to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver immediately after her release. Harriet died in hospital on 24 February 2007 from pneumonia complicated by undiagnosed lung cancer thus rendering her one of the first [unintentional] martyrs of the B.C. ecology movement.

In a separate trial, 78 year old Betty Krawczyk, an environmental activist involved in earlier blockades at Clayoquot Sound, the Elaho and Walbran Valleys, was convicted of criminal contempt of court for her non-violent passive resistance at Eagleridge Bluffs. Final sentencing arguments were heard on 19 February 2007 with the crown recommending a 9-15 month prison sentence based on Betty’s previous contempt of court convictions and her three prior arrests at Eagleridge. Betty K has dedicated her life to fighting the use of civil injunctions in B.C. environmental disputes. [NB: The use of these injunctions by the courts result in contempt charges for what would otherwise be obstruction, mischief or trespassing charges under the Criminal Code. Injunctions give the granting judge the power to determine the ultimate fate of an ecosystem, and the authority to restrict any and all unauthorized personnel from being in the area in question.]

Betty K Speaks Prior to Her Sentencing [6:18]

[Betty displays a commendable equanimity when considering her situation. As mentioned in the video, the Judge scheduled to appear that day couldn't be bothered to show up.]

The following video was filmed prior to the destruction of Eagleridge Bluffs by short-sighted bureaucrats.

An Environmental Tragedy of Olympic Proportions [5:11]
">

For further information, go to The Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs at Horseshoe Bay, the 2010 Olympic Games Watch or Eagle Ridge Bluffs Protesting

The New Normal or the Interim Reality?

2007-03-09T02:59:00.000-03:00

It still pains me to consider how correct some of the dystopian SciFi of the 1950s and 1960s was in predicting that the world would eventually come to be run by corporations. It's not so bad that I'm going down to run down to the corner for a bag of Soylent Green with extra butter or anything, but the vicious world-wide retrenchment of the modern Keynesian welfare state [in the developed nations], the complicity of the state in sowing the seeds of its own destruction [the developed nations], the disturbing obliviousness of the general public is troubling. Equally disturbing, although for different reasons, has been the rise of materialist cultures in the developing nations as the nation-state that have been squashed by the transnational corporations [TNCs] and international regulatory bodies [such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.] Finally, the failure of workers across the world to mobilize against the forces that are rapidly crushing all opposition, co-opting dissent, and controlling much of the mainstream media. While the TNCs have successfully created unity for their shared class interests the working class is still divided by petty nationalism and the basic struggle for survival in an increasingly hostile world.

Knowing what is wrong and knowing what to do are two entirely separate things, however. As for what should be done, several basic options appear to exist, each representing an ideological corollary to Conway’s Law - any ideology tends to reflect the organizational structure that produced it.

1) Doing nothing. [As easy as this would be, the dominant socio-economic ideology across all of the industrialized nations - globalized economy - is behaving as responsibly as a 14-year old with a stolen vehicle.]

2) Modifying the current system. An example of such an idea would include the global implementation of the International Labour Organization's Core Labour Standards. These standards include:
- Freedom of association [the right to organize and collective bargaining]
- Abolition of forced labour
- Equality
- Elimination of child labour [which requires that one or both parents be paid a living wage]

3) A third option. A radical redistribution of wealth or some other plan as yet unknown??

'The Little Guy'll Always Win if He's in the Right and Keeps on Comin'.'

2007-03-04T23:20:00.000-03:00

The text of the preceding message reads as follows:
'Dear Mr. Prime minister haper [sic] I don’t like to stay in this jail. I’m only nine years old. I want to go to my school in Canada. I’m sleeping beside the wall. Please Mr. Priminister haper give visa for my family. This place is not good for me. I want to get out of the cell. Just pleace [sic] give visa for my family. My home land is in Canada, My life is over there. I’m also sleeping beside wasroom [sic]. Mr. Priminister [sic] haper [sic] pleace [sic] bring me and my family to Canada. Thank you so much.’

The nature of citizenship is becoming all too flexible in this unstable world. A thousand years ago most people spent their entire lifetimes within a short distance of where they were born. [While interactions and exchanges occurred between different cultures, they were primarily facilitated by specialized classes of individuals such as merchants and soldiers.] In the increasingly globalized marketplace, cultures are blending like never before and no precedents exist for dealing with it. At what point does a naturalized immigrant cease being a resident of their original country and ‘belong’ to the new country? [Or, more importantly, does an individual ever really 'belong' to a country in the first place?] At what point is it unreasonable to deport a naturalized immigrant? And is it ever reasonable to request the children of immigrant’s leave [as Germany is doing to the grandchildren [!] of the ‘guest-workers’ that it invited in during the prosperity of the post-war years].

In the increasingly unstable post 9/11 world, we will have to try and gain and understanding of how these newcomers fit into our society. The notion of Fortress America or Fortress Europe is logistically impossible and, given the negative population growth [and resulting loss of labour reproduction], new workers will be needed soon. An example of this need is demonstrated by the United State’s dependency on other nations for raw materials and labour. Talk of blockading the Mexican border, for example, is unrealistic because America needs cheap labour. Mexican workers put more into the system than they can take out and, more importantly, perform jobs that many American workers would refuse for higher wages. [See the mockumentary ‘A Day Without a Mexican’ for an entertaining albeit simplistic view of this issue. For more well-researched opinion, see 'Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy - December 2006' by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts] A more immediate example of this problem has recently come about following the detention of a nine-year old Canadian boy named Kevin and his parents in the United States.

Kevin is Canadian by birth and acculturation while his parents are of Iranian ancestry and have been denied Canadian citizenship. As a consequence of inadvertently entering American territory during an emergency landing in Puerto Rico, Kevin and his family are currently being held at the T. Don Hutto Immigrant Detention Center in Taylor, Texas.

All Canadian citizens [and any non-Canadian citizen who is interested in seeing justice done] should send an e-mail to Peter MacKay <"MacKay.P@parl.gc.ca"> demanding immediate action and urge your friends and colleagues to join you in this call for justice.

For further information, please go to Democracy Now! or Verbena19

On a related note, Texans United for Families organized a vigil in December 2006 to assert the dignity and humanity of the families detained at the Hutto Immigrant Detention Center. The Center is operated by Corrections Corporation of America, a private, for-profit prison. By its own admission, the center is one of the first institutions of its kind, able to hold entire families who have been detained at USA border entry points. [Not surprisingly, this raises a number of legal and moral issues.] Children are housed in cells with their parents until such time as the Department of Homeland Security arranges for their deportation, they are granted asylum, or they manage to secure a bond for their release. The children are provided with no more than one hour of school and recreation per day, and many have lost significant amounts of weight and suffered illness since their initial incarceration. [While I don't know a great deal about Texans United for Families, it is reassuring to see that some Texans are willing to, as the late Molly Ivins suggested, stand up against the surge.]

Watch the videos here:

A Vigil Outside the Hutto Detention Center by Texans United for Families, Part 1 [9:26]

A Vigil Outside the Hutto Detention Center by Texans United for Families, Part 2 [9:56]

Shaming the Victim

2007-03-03T03:15:00.001-03:00

‘History has the cruel reality of a nightmare, and the grandeur of humanity consists in it making beautiful and lasting works out of the real substance of that nightmare. Or, to put it another way, it consists in transforming that nightmare into vision; in freeing ourselves from the shapeless horror of reality - if only for an instant - by means of creation.’

- Octavio Paz [1950]. The Labyrinth of Solitude

Given the breadth and depth of the inhumanity being perpetrated across the world, it is always surprising to me that it is practically impossible to experience sympathy fatigue. The more I discover about how the globalized economy is working to make virtual serfs of basically everyone [as Barbara Ehrenreich visualized it, the 'Brazilianization' of global society - a teeming underclass living in absolute poverty, a transparently thin middle class, and an even smaller ruling class], I'm still appalled, astonished and outraged by how the lower and middle classes are used against each other. The middle-class, such as it is in America, has been manipulated by fear and greed to despise the poor. Worse than this, by keeping the middle class in a state of perpetual fear and parinoia, they become unable to gain a fuller understanding of the state of the world and where it is going.

I have to admit a certain fondness for material goods but the time will soon arrive when we will be forced to make a decision regarding the continued viability of the planet and our place on it. Concern must be directed towards the burgeoning population across the world which, according to the latest United Nations study, is predicted to peak at an estimated total of 10 billion by the year 2050. [Of these, over fifty percent will live in urban/peri-urban areas and all population growth will occur in urban areas]. Scenes like those documented below will become increasingly common as the urban population expands and the world economy continues to be mercilessly right-sized by the irrational logic of capitalism.

Umoja Village [Liberty City] [7:14]
This documentary examines the situation faced by the squatters in Miami, Florida. Following a number of broken promises by the local government and corrupt practices by business developers, conflict erupts as a group of poverty activists take matters into their own hands.

For more information, please go to Take Back the Land.

St. Petersburg [Florida] P.D. Destroy Tent City [2:15]
St. Petersburg P.D. use box cutters to shred a tent city as the residents watch in shock. One homeless advocacy group described St. Petersburg as being the 'meanest city in the nation.' [Given the general ideological shift to the right since the 1980s, that must have been a real challenge][Video by Tina May]

For more information, please go to St. Pete for Peace

2007-02-25T19:40:00.000-03:00

Despite my misgivings about the current American administration, I must admit to having an odd affection for the American people as a whole. (I suppose it's a matter of hating the sin and not the sinner.)

Despite the difficulty in convincing non-Americans that they (America) are still a democracy at anything beyond face value, they were still responsible for bringing many of the elements crucial to the so-called modern democratic state together, including the pivotal concepts incorporated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. High water points in American history, in my opinion, have included the revolution of 1776 [although, as Howard Zinn and others remind us, the Revolution was directed by rich, tax-dodging, slave-owning white men], the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the era of progressive reforms, and the less hedonistic elements of the so-called counter-culture of the 1960s. [As Samuel Huntington observed, '[t]he essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to systems of authority, public and private. In one form or another, this challenge manifested itself in the family, the university, business, public and private associations, politics, the governmental bureaucracy, and the military services.']

Unfortunately, they appear to have allowed their political system to be hijacked by automatons and now the margin of real difference between their two dominant parties is so small as to make no difference. Maybe that's what is so frustrating. They have had so much potential and they have squandered it. As the saying goes, no matter who you vote for the government always gets in.

On Breaking Points and Lack Thereof

2007-02-22T14:33:00.000-03:00

A recent discussion regarding the ongoing situation in Afghanistan and Iraq [and Iran?] brought an observation of Henry Kissinger from 1969 to mind.

"I can’t believe,” Kissinger told us, “that a fourth-rate power like North Vietnam doesn't have a breaking point."

While far from being an original thought, it is still somewhat disconcerting to consider that American leadership can continue to enmesh themselves in situations such as this time and again with no thought as to what has led to this path. [Kissinger was wondering the same thing 37 years ago that the current administration is wondering now. The only difference being that the American forces had the option of withdrawal with a chance of success]. The Bush administration has enthusiastically opted to place itself in a state of zugswang from which they no longer have the luxury of disengaging from, unlike earlier neocolonialist 'adventures' in Grenada or Panama. By ignoring the motivations and history of their opponents, they have effectively made the same mistake as a number of military leaders throughout the past century - fighting the wrong battle. Much as the British commanders attempted to repeat the Crimean War during WWI and the French attempted to use the tactics of WWI to win WWII, America's political leadership gives the impression of having gravely misjudged their opponents and their supporters. It is as if they assume that the Iraqi and Afghan peoples have been secretly waiting for the opportunity to become citizens of an American satellite state. Now, instead of seeing what they wanted us to see, we are now witnessing the chickens coming home to roost.

2007-02-18T22:33:00.000-03:00

'This country with its constitution belongs to those who live in it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they shall exercise their constitutional rights of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.'

- Abraham Lincoln

'Although I admire the revolutionary art of the Black Panthers, I feel that guns alone will never change this System. You don't use a gun on an IBM computer. You pull the plug out of it.'

- Free [aka Abbie Hoffman]. [1970]. Revolution for the Hell of It.

2007-02-16T14:01:00.000-03:00

‘[T]he colonizer denies the colonized the most precious right granted to most men: liberty.'

- Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized. [1957]

'These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.'

— Thomas Paine, [December 1776]. The Crisis.

2007-02-15T12:15:00.000-03:00

‘Colonialism creates the patriotism of the colonized. Kept at the level of a beast by an oppressive system, the natives are given no rights, not even the right to live. Their condition worsens daily. And when a people has no choice but how it will die; when a people has received from its oppressors only the gift of despair, what does it have to lose? A people’s misfortune will become its courage; it will make, of its endless rejection by colonialism, the absolute rejection of colonialism (Memmi, 1957: xxviii-xxix).’

‘[E]very colonial nation carries the seeds of fascist temptation in its bosom … The human relationships have arisen from the severest exploitation, founded on inequality and contempt, guaranteed by police authoritarianism (Memmi, 1957: 62).’

- Albert Memmi. [1957]. The Colonizer and the Colonized.

‘Activism evolved from being constrained and defined by the scalar politics of national post-war welfare states to embracing the local-global politics characteristic of the antiglobalization movement (Conway, 2004).’

Janet Conway. [2004]. Identity, Place, and Knowledge: Social Movements Contesting Globalization.

2007-02-14T13:38:00.000-03:00

'I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.'

- Leo Tolstoy [1826-1910]

2007-02-13T16:46:00.000-03:00

‘I am part of that power which eternally
wills evil and eternally works good.’

- Goethe, Faust

2007-02-12T03:58:00.001-03:00

‘…terrible apprehensions were among the people.’

- Daniel Dafoe, A Journal of the Plague Year [1722]

‘Every age has its peculiar folly: some scheme, project, or phantasy [sic] into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation.’

- Charles McKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds [1841]

‘The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.’

- George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism [1945]

2007-02-09T12:48:00.000-03:00

'Networks are cooperative not competitive.
They are true grass roots:
self-generating, self-organizing, sometimes self-destructing.
They represent a process, a journey, not a frozen structure....
a network is both intimate and expansive...
Networks are the strategy by which small groups
can transform an entire society.'

- Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy. [1982].

'I have had with my friend Wes Jackson a number of conversations about the necessity of getting out of movements - even movements that have seemed necessary and dear to us - when they have lapsed into self-righteousness and self-betrayal, as movements seem almost invariably to do. People in movements too readily learn to deny to others the rights and privileges they demand for themselves.'

- Wendell Berry, 'in distrust of movements.' In Orion. [Summer 1999]. 18, 3.

2006-12-30T14:12:00.000-03:00

“No problem can be solved. When the situation becomes a problem, it becomes insoluble. Problems are by definition insoluble. No problems can be solved, and all solutions lead to more problems."

- William Burroughs in Barry Miles. [1990]. Ginsberg: A Biography. New York: HarperPerrenial.

2006-12-28T01:11:00.000-03:00

“It is recorded that Venizelos, in reading in Fisher’s History of Europe that the Greek invasion of Asia Minor in 1919 was a mistake, smiled ironically and said: ‘Every enterprise that does not succeed is a mistake.’ If Wat Tyler’s rebellion succeeded, he would be an English hero. If the American War of Independence had ended in disaster, the founding fathers of the United States would be briefly regarded in history as a gang of turbulent and unscrupulous fanatics.”

- E.H. Carr, The 20 Years’ Crisis 1919-1939

2006-12-27T04:18:00.000-03:00

“If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, thought, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness.”

- William Gibson, from ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ in Burning Chrome [1986]