Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!!

Photo from CannabisCulture.ca

Wherever you are in the world there is a place to voice your support for stopping the extradition of Marc Emery, Greg Williams, and Michelle Rainey from Canada. The DEA have no place on Canadian soil and Canadian police have no buisness enforcing US law. To view the list of cities with protest times and places click here! To read more about what happend click here! Or check out pot-tv for coverage.

Discourse of the Good ol' Boys

So I'm reading about Cindy Sheehan and the counter demonstrations that are emerging in Texas both from news sources and on the blog blocks. It's interesting that we still refer to our soldiers as 'boys' who need their 'mothers' to bring them home. The language and general discourse surrounding this war - on both the pro and anti war sides - needs to be examined closely so as not to re-affirm the rigid roles and categories we've all worked so hard to distance from.

Discourse is described by Marita Sturken & Lisa Cartwright in their book "Practices of Looking: An introduction to visual culture"(2001). They state:

"The term 'discourse' is usually used to describe passages of writing or speech, the act of talking about something. Foucault used the term more specifically. He was interested in the rules and practices that produce meaningful statements and regulate what can be spoken in different historical periods. By discourse he meant a group of statements which provide a means for talking about (and a way of representing knowledge about) a particular topic at a particular historical moment. Hence, for Foucault, discourse is a body of knowledge that both defines and limits what can be said about something. In Foucault's terms, one could talk about the discourses of law, medicine, criminality, sexuality, technology, etc., in other words, broad social domains that define particular forms of knowledge and that change from any given time period and social context to another." (pp.93-94)

There's nothing like a war to deter social progress and restrict the discourse.

I'm not speaking to the 'freedom fries' phenomenon, nor to the rhetoric of 'WMD's' or the more recent (non)change to the title 'war against violent extremism', (though these would qualify as well) but rather to the everyday 'newspeak ' that is erasing fifty years of social progress.

I'm talking about underlying assumptions of social positions that are demonstrated in phrases like 'grieving mother' or 'bringin the boys home'. At some point, the soldiers - the 'sons' - need to take responsibility for their own choice of (in)action - and at some point, we need to stop laying all responsibility for the cultural morality on 'mothers'. Men are moral, girls are soldiers, and this whole discourse surrounding the war sounds like it is strait out of the 1950's.

If we continue to support the rigid roles proscribed by the Bushies and the right in this language choice and the contextual drawings that align with that language - we are all playing into the discourse, the 'newspeak' that has gotten us here.

Let's be careful - both left and right - not to fall into the use of Good ol'Boy discourse to describe the atrocities of this war, the pain of loosing daughters and sons, the dismay of a new live fascism in America, and try to remember that there has been much social progress since the close of the war in Vietnam and WWII.

Lest we forget...is not simply a statement about the conflict itself.

Let's not erode and erase another 50 years of social progress with the re-appropriation of an age old discourse that surrounds armed conflict. We've lost so much already - and I don't want to see us lose the social progressions too! (well anymore than is already gone)
We simply cannot be limited to calling this war 'un-good', describing our soldiers as 'boys' and hoping for a moral reaction from 'mothers' to bring a stop to it all.
I want peace for all human beings, not just for those whose discourse dictated role suites the current schema of Ol'Boy propositions.

The (non)sense of conspiracy theory

Brazil's ambassador doesn't beleive there was a cover up when Jean Charles de Menezes was shot in the London tube last month according to a CBC story. I'm not going to re-hash all the various accounts here, but I must say some of the 'conspiracy theories' make more sense than the 'official story'.

Alex Jones Infowars site is becoming notorious for so called 'crazy talk' - but reading Paul Joseph Watson's article, which first appeared at Prison Planet.com on July 13, really gave me something to think about.

Another good one - to follow Watson - by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky can be found here and there are several follow-up articles to Chossudovsky's, one of which is particularly helpful in determining the odds of a 'drill' happening on the same morning.

Food for thought anyway.

So in conclusion - perhaps this is all 'crazy talk' - but the government of the United States and Britian waging an illegal war was 'crazy talk' at one point too...

To paraphrase my mom - it often takes the 'radicals' to wake the rest of us up.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. -Henry David Thoreau

Raised in the prarie winds I simply must comment on this CBC story regarding Regina's municipal and transit workers on strike.

"The strike affects transit, garbage collection, road, sewer and water services, park maintenance and recreational facilities.

Mayor Pat Fiacco said that a disagreement between the city and its workers over pension contributions made an agreement difficult to reach.

In order to keep employee pension plans viable, the city has been required to contribute 3.4 per cent. The city says that amount should be factored in when considering what pay raises employees should receive."

Well it's good to know your value to a society. That's right our road crews, transit, sewer service and garbage collection - not to mention park maintencance and recreation facilities - are, according to Fiacco, services only worthy of a 'BOTTOM LINE' negoatiation.

The BOTTOM LINE of city expenditiure is simply more important than that silly thing called a pension. I mean the nerve of those workers - 20 years of service and undoubtably care for the municipality and they want what!?? A contribution to their meager pension without it being 'factored in' to the current wage?

Let's look at what this really means if pension contribution is counted toward pay increase and raises. I - the employer - want to give you a raise, but you understand that of that money a percentage is given to your pension. So you actually get a smaller raise, so that when I contribute to your pension I'm out the same amount of bucks overall. Hey, I maintained the BOTTOM LINE and gave everyone the impression that these workers matter! A day in the life of a mayor - how nice.

So what does the Message from the mayor on the city of Regina Information services page say about the city?

Welcome to Regina, a city I am proud to call home. Regina is an excellent place to raise a family, with an abundance of parks , family attractions, bicycle pathways, organized sports and sports facilities, and excellent school systems. It is a city that celebrates its cultural diversity and is known for its generous, friendly people. Regina is a dynamic, progressive community, with a strong, diversified economy and a quality of life that is exceptional.

I wonder if he has considered that the people maintaining those parks, bicycle pathways, sports facilities and other 'family attractions' which keep people 'friendly' are the people he is cutting funding for? Is his 'excellent school system' on the block next week? If the economy is so 'strong' and 'diversified' why not maintain pension contributions independent of pay scale increases? Finally, how will an 'exceptional' 'quality of life' be maintained without a decent living wage with benefits?

The Regina Leader Post reports of this strike that:

The unions have been battling city officials for a contract comparable to that of City of Saskatoon workers and employees at the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant.

And continues:

Last Thursday, the city offered the unions a contract with a $500 cash bonus for 2004, a one-per-cent pay raise for 2005 and a three-per-cent pay raise in 2006. City of Saskatoon workers got a 2.17-per-cent pay raises in each of three years while the Buffalo Pound workers received raises of one per cent, three per cent and three per cent.

Since we're now comparing Saskatoon to Regina - I was unable to locate what Mr. Fiacco earns in a year but according to the 2003 Saskatoon Civic Elections Candidates' Information Booklet, the mayor of Saskatoon earns $84,170 - this is prior to the 2005 approved pay raise reported by the Saskatoon StarPhoenix which I was unable to locate in their archives. The booklet states:

An office at City Hall is provided for the Mayor, as well as the services of an Administrative Assistant and a secretary. The salary of the Mayor is 77.27% of that of a Saskatchewan CabinetMinister, one-third of which is non-taxable. In 2003, the Mayor's salary is $84,170.

So I will assume that the Mayor of Regina earns approximately the same amount as the Mayor of Saskatoon. This means of the $84,170 earned, $28,056.66 is non-taxable as of 2003.

This is not leading to the conclusion that either mayor is over-paid or that Mr. Fiacco should put HIS money where his mouth is...but perhaps the mayor should heed some words of wisdom as he shares his velvet cushion.

I want to be a real boy!

No progress in negotiations for a new constitution for Iraq - WELL DUH - this whole issue is exactly the problem the rest of the world saw coming at the announcement of the war in Iraq.

I think the Bushies need to stop following Disney logic:

"When you wish upon a star
makes no difference who you are,
when you wish upon a star
your dreams come true"

Bush's nose is gonna give them away if this analogy is followed too closely.

Perhaps the title should read "I want to be a real president"

Too little too late

The article CN says it knew about toxic wood preservative describes the reactions of residents near the spill, the Alberta government, and CN rail to the August 3 train derailment which spilled toxic chemicals (more toxic than the oil itself?) into Lake Wabamun. Klein has stated that this event is "heartbreaking" and there is a litany of deadlines for CN rail to meet with regard to cleaning up. The final section of the article reads:

"By noon today, CN must provide a land remediation plan. By Monday, the railway must have all of the oil still on surface of the lake contained. The shoreline cleanup plan must be ready by Tuesday.

At Sunday's meeting, provincial Environment Minister Guy Boutilier said, "We can learn from it (the spill) and we will learn from it."

He said the province will set up an environmental protection commission to ensure Alberta is better prepared to deal with such disasters."

Well then, I'm so relieved that the environment minister is prepared to learn from this. I'm so relieved that an environmental protection commission is going to help Alberta deal with problems in the future. Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?

The PROBLEM here is that none of this was considered in advance of an accident occurring!

It's great to clean it up (Thank you, that's the least you can do CN. Oh and how about re-populating the species -both plant and animal -that have been devastated by the spill you lied about?) Frankly, this after-the-fact knee jerk reaction of committee forming (read larger bureaucracy) and 'learning from' (oops we should have covered this prior to the event) just doesn't cut it!

This is what us 'crazy environmentalist leftists' have been 'harping' about for years! The solution to this problem is to prevent a 'next time', not provide more employment for policy analysts and widen the bureaucratic net. I would like to see someone - the government, CN rail, citizens near the spill - advocate for stronger environmental controls ALL AROUND. The heartbreaking statement from Klein sounds a little contrary - he wasn't heartbroken over the Kyoto accord and certainly didn't provide an alternative vision!

Perhaps we've all received another lesson in too little, too late.

Mobilization Against War and Occupation

So yesterday I'm out protesting with the Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) in Vancouver. There was a rally at the Canadian Forces recruiting center in downtown Vancouver on Georgia street. The interesting thing at this protest - versus others I've attended in Vancouver - was the military personnel video taping us (the protestors) from inside the building.

Now this may be a tactic of intimidation - or it might legitimately be that the Canadian military is spending time and resources to record those of us who do not agree with militarizaiton - but honestly is this where the increased military budget is going? To monitor and record Canadian citizens excercising their right to a peaceful demonstration and political expression? Has our state become so afraid of dissent that our citizens must be tracked?

It was my understanding - perhaps naive on my part - that the foundation of democratic nations rests on one's ability to express dissent. To express disagreement with government action, and to peacefully protest the actions that government has taken (or failed to take depending on the situation). Unlike our southern neighbours - I don't believe one's committment to their country is measured in blind adherence to government doctrine. Rather, I demonstrate the love I have for my country through preserving the social moors and norms that have come to distinguish our state - mostly found in the Charter - but exemplified in our ability as Canadian citizens to say "I disagree!" The extreme nationalism demonstrated by our southern neighbours is blinding and eroding their democracy - will Canadians allow this trend to continue northward?

So I guess I'll just keep protesting, and they can add my name to the list, because I still believe in the democratic system. I still believe that the preservation of democratic nations rests on its citizens ability to critique, dialogue, and when necessary express dissent regarding that government.

Wonder if I'll end up on Ottawa's no fly list?

So my friends say...but no comment

So my friends say I have a tendency to babble.

Now this is mostly true, though others might characterize it as ranting and on occasion raving.
This put the wheels in motion and of course the most logical conclusion was to follow in the steps of my mom - and start a blog.

The funny part is that now I'm here watching random thoughts and words appear on a screen in front of me and I have - no comment. (Perhaps a dazzling career with the Bush administration is in the works? Ah, but my fault is a conscience.)

It's amazing that I - a self considered champion of political commentary, and smart ass remarks, with a low BS tolerance - would stand on a self proclaimed platform to the world throught the wonders of internet technology and... zip, nada, nothing...

Maybe tomorrow.