CANADIAN POLITICS:

FOOD BANK USE SURGES IN CANADA:

The following article from the online news service Straight Goods reports a shocking increase in food bank usage across the country in 2010. You can read the full report from Food Banks Canada here. All numbers in the following article are taken from this report. This has particular resonance for the province of Manitoba because, as another article from the CBC points out this province "led" (if you can call it that) all the other provinces in the increase of traffic at food banks. The Canadian average is 9.2%. Manitoba weighs in at 21.0%, followed by Saskatchewan at 20.0%. Only the territories at an incredible 59,0% are higher.

What can you say about these sort of numbers ? One is that they give the lie to the Conservative propaganda that "Canada has escaped the worst of the economic downturn". Yes, maybe in terms of both the rich and those with secure employment. There are, however, huge numbers of people who very plainly haven't escaped at all. The smoke and mirrors of the federal Conservative "stimulus program" which ended up not spending the majority of its promised funds is now giving way to plans for "austerity"...read further attacks on the lowest income groups in the country while maintaining as many corporate give-aways as possible.

Not that this sort of duplicity is unique to the Conservatives. A Liberal federal government would have acted essentially the same, Perhaps without the utter contempt for truth and the public of a bald faced lie about funds that would never be spent, but with essentially the same set of fiscal priorities. Both major parties are entirely wholeheartedly committed to maintaining an economic system that embodies massive inequality. The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois are committed to tinkering around the edges of the system, often merely to gather votes and reduce social tensions. Their "solutions" leave the mountain intact and chip off a few sharp stones that irk people too much.

Anarchism, on the other hand is committed to a full revamping of the way we do economics, a program that radically reduces inequality. Maybe not eliminating it entirely but definitely abolishing logical absurdities such as the idea that some who make literally 100,000s more income than others do 100,000s more work (a physical impossibility by several orders of magnitude). Or the idea that their work (which far too often consists of purely useless financial manipulation or even literally doing nothing is 100,000 times "more valuable". Put frankly common sense says that there is not a single coal miner, farmer, hydro technician, nurse, snow cleaner and many others whose work is immensely more valuable than the "work" done by corporate executives who continue to profit economic downturn or not.

Now, as I have expressed before on this blog I don't see the transition to a freer and more equal society as coming about through some apocalyptic "revolution", though there will certainly be high tension at certain periods of time. The transition will be years, decades even, whereby workers gradually encroach on management power in the workplaces, where local communities struggle to take back power now monopolized by federal or provincial governments , where trade deals that bind citizens to agreements that are against their interests are abrogated, where laws and social work interventions that restrict personal freedom are eliminated one by one, where cooperatives, both producer and consumer, experience a resurgence that gradually brings larger sections of the economy under democratic control, where financial institutions cooperative and mutualistic in nature, gradually gain the economic clout to finance startups of such initiatives, where local small business is protected both by elimination of the government programs that favour the corporations and by a change in attitude of the population that sees the value of the local community. Where laws that are simply ill-mannered attempts of others to control the victimless actions of others are repealed. Where it finally dawns on social action groups that accepting government grants is the kiss of death. By so many things that don't come immediately to mind.

Anarchism provides at least a general guide to what is laudable and what is not in this long term struggle. No doubt many anarchists go astray in various directions, either towards statism or to useless revolutionary romanticism, but the broad centre of the anarchist movement today is moving towards such goals. That is why anarchism provides a broad outline for the solution of inequality and the poverty that accomplishes it, though local initiate from poor people themselves. Other solutions have been tried and have consistently failed.

But enough of the intro. Here's the SG article...

******************
Food bank use up sharply

Demand up 9 percent since 2009, 28 percent since 2008.

Dateline: Monday, November 22, 2010

from HungerCount

OTTAWA, November 16, 2010 — The results of the HungerCount 2010 survey released today show food banks across Canada helped 867,948 separate individuals in March 2010, an increase of 9.2 percent, or more than 73,000 people, compared to March 2009. This is 28 percent higher than in 2008, and is the highest level of food bank use since 1997.

Of the 867,948 people helped in March this year, 80,150 — 9.2 percent of the total — stepped through the front door of a food bank for the first time. The survey also shows that food bank use grew in every province in 2010.

Thirty-eight percent of those assisted by food banks are children and youth under 18 years old.



"This is a reality check. Food banks are seeing first hand that the recession is not over for a large number of Canadians," said Katharine Schmidt, Executive Director of Food Banks Canada, which coordinated the annual national study.

"We are hearing that it is really tough out there," Ms. Schmidt said. "Many people who lost their jobs during the recession have now exhausted their unemployment benefits, and are looking to self-employment or to temporary and part-time jobs for income.

"Others have been forced to fall back on social assistance. These options aren't paying the bills, and people are accessing food banks to fill the gap."

As in past years, the profile of those assisted by food banks is highly varied:

38 percent of those assisted by food banks are children and youth under 18 years old.

Half of assisted households are families with children.

17 percent of households that turn to food banks for help each month are living on income from current or recent employment.

7 percent of assisted households report a pension as their primary source of income.
"Coming to a food bank is not an easy decision for people," said Bill Hall, Executive Director of the Battlefords and District Food and Resource Centre, in North Battleford, Saskatchewan.

"Unfortunately, there continues to be a need for help in our community, and we have expanded our efforts to meet that need — when the overall goal should be to address the causes of hunger more broadly, and to be able to reduce our services and even close our doors for good."

"Though the recession has made things worse, the causes of hunger and low income run much deeper than the recent economic crisis," said Ms. Schmidt. "The need for food banks is a result of our failure as a country to adequately address a number of social issues, including a changing job market, a lack of affordable housing and child care, and a social safety net that is ineffective."

The HungerCount provides recommendations on how the federal government can work to increase people's ability to be self sufficient. Food Banks Canada's recommendations include the following:

1. Implement a national poverty prevention and reduction strategy, with measurable targets and timelines.

2. Create a federal housing strategy to increase and monitor investment in affordable housing programs in Canada's cities, towns and rural areas.

3. Maintain current levels of federal cash and tax transfers to provincial, territorial, and First Nations governments.

4. Address the unacceptable rates of low income among our most vulnerable seniors — those who live alone, without other means of support.

About the HungerCount Survey HungerCount was initiated in 1989 and is the only comprehensive national study of food banks and affiliated food programs in Canada. Since 1997, data for the study have been collected every March. The information provided by the survey is invaluable, forming the basis of many Food Banks Canada activities throughout the year. For a full copy of the HungerCount 2010 report and associated graphics, and for more information, please visit www.foodbankscanada.ca.

About Food Banks Canada Food Banks Canada is the national charitable organization representing the food bank community across Canada. Our Members, Affiliate Member food banks, and their respective agencies serve approximately 85 percent of people accessing emergency food programs nationwide. Our mission is to meet the short-term need for food and find long-term solutions to reduce hunger.

— — —

Moncton - The new government of David Alward should immediately increase revenues for people who are living on social assistance - Linda McCaustlin, co-chair of the Common Front for Social Justice

"The last two Hunger Count Reports have revealed that during the last two years, there was an 18 percent increase in food bank usage in NB Just this year, the number of people using food banks has also increased. Thirty-four percent of food bank clients are children; thirteen percent are wage earners but the majority of them (61 percent) are social assistance recipients. This is completely unacceptable in a country as rich as Canada" says Linda McCaustlin.

"We are asking Hon. Susan Stultz, the new Minister of Social Development, to immediately provide all adults on social assistance with a $100 per-month healthy food allowance supplement. We are also asking her to provide an additional $35 per month per child to households receiving social assistance.

"Moreover, since the income of seniors receiving the guaranteed annual supplement is below the Low Income Cut-off (before tax), a $100 food supplement should be added to the current $400 supplement forwarded to these seniors. These food supplements should be indexed with the cost of living.

"Given that 13 percent of NB food bank users are people in the workforce, the minimum wage should continue to rise so as to meet one of the workers most basic needs, namely a nutritious diet.''

"Food is essential for life and is therefore recognized as a basic human right in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The fact that thousands of NB citizens and their families go to bed hungry is a shameful result of our political leaders' inability to govern in the interest of the common good. Those members of our business community who are paying very low wages should realize the detrimental effects of this practice on the nutritional status of their employees" continues Ms. McCaustlin.

Ms. McCaustlin states: "Part of the problem of food banks being unable to cope with current demands is due to the inadequate income of too many New Brunswickers." Indeed, NB has one of the lowest social assistance basic rates in all of Canada, and it ranks as the fourth lowest in terms of minimum wage.

"The Common Front for Social Justice has heard that some segments of the business community are lobbying for a two-tier minimum wage — one applicable mainly to workers receiving tips. We hope that this will never be implemented because it would keep a large segment of workers, mainly women, in low paying jobs", continues Ms. McCaustlin.

Nutritious food is more expensive than ever as was shown by the 2010 CFSJ provincial survey on food prices. Between 2006 and 2010, basic items like eggs went up by 21.9 percent, cheese by 36.7 percent, round steak by 23.8 percent, rice by 42.6 percent, flour by 84.9 percent and whole wheat bread 102.1 percent.

"Food price increase is a harsh reality facing all NB households. However, the situation is more dramatic for those who work at minimum wage, for those who depend on social assistance and for those seniors living on a low fixed income".

HUMOUR:

REMEMBER THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES:

HUMOUR:

A DO-GOODERS' WET DREAM:

Eat your broccoli and get 'the help you need". A social worker's dream. A normal person's nightmare.

HUMOUR:

WHO TO BLAME:

ANARCHIST THEORY:

STATE AND CLASS:

I originally saw the following item on the Miami Autonomy and Solidarity site. The original source is an exciting new website Havana Times written from a progressive viewpoint but with none of the displaced mindless patriotism so typical of western leftists who worship foreign dictatorships.

I would certainly not characterize Havana Times as anarchist, but many of the items there are things that few anarchists could disagree with. I found the following interesting despite having my own disagreements with some of the author's opinions. Like many, perhaps most, anarchists the author characterizes state socialist regimes as being essentially "state capitalist". I disagree, and I think "managerial" is a better word just as it is for the societies in which most of us live ie so-called "capitalist" regimes. My reason is the overwhelming way in which prices are set and resources allocated in such regimes, a manner remote from the idealized "capitalism" of a century ago (though "capitalism" was always a mixed economy in any case) where they were supposed to be set by market competition. In the case of Marxist dictatorships the word is even less apt because the supposed labour market consisting of those free to sell their labour to the highest bidder is a total fantasy. The labour "market" under Marxism is closer to that of theocratic slave states or serfdom than it is to "capitalism".

I also disagree that a system of de jure government ownership and de facto self management would be anything resembling a stable arrangement. I admit its theoretical possibility and actual probability over a long term transition to real self management. With the proviso, of course, that the controllers of the state would continually try to expand their power at the expense of actual self managed socialism.

All that being said the following is a perceptive look at the difference between legal fictions of ownership and the actual realities of social power. Well worth reading.

SCSCSCSCSC
State Owned Doesn’t Mean Socialist
HAVANA TIMES, April 27 — Recently in Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, an article appeared about the economic efficiency of “socialist government enterprises” in the armed forces (4/16/10).

In the spirit of helping to clarify certain concepts, I have attempted to provide a few, more precise, details here.

Apparently the comrades who wrote about the Military Agricultural Union “socialist government enterprise,” based themselves on the identification of state and socialist property by virtue of the fact that this property belongs to the Cuban state; they assume that all state property is, de jure, socialist. However, what gives a property its social character —be it socialist or capitalist— is the form of its operation and the appropriation of its output, not its legal form.
This confusion was introduced in socialist theory by those who mistook estatización (state ownership) for socialization. They thought that for property to be socialized, it was sufficient to place it under state ownership and then hold the state sacred above the rest of society.

The social character of a company is one thing and the legal structure of its ownership is something else. The social character of property is determined by the form in which it is put to use, by the way in which work is organized, the mode of production (based on slave, serf, wage or freely associated labor) and the way in which the surplus obtained is distributed. This is independent of the property’s legal structure, which can be state-owned, collective or privately owned. This said, the natural tendency is for the content (the social character) of property to determine its legal form (structure), not the other way around.

Certainly, a government enterprise that exploits wage labor can be efficient. There are many examples of this throughout the entire capitalist world , even in the USA, England and Japan.

However, though the legal form of such property is state-owned, those companies are not socialist. They are capitalist because they respond to the capitalist logic of obtaining profits through wage labor, which in this case is appropriated by the state. As a corollary, when that state seeks the “well being” of the workers, with fairer distribution, this is what characterizes social democracy.

So what if the state is in the hands of the workers?” the statists might ask.

The same thing would happen as what has occurred in every “worker’s state”: the workers would continue being paid a wage (which would not be determined by the level of production), they would have no ownership or usufruct relationship with the means of production, and they would not participate in the distribution of profits.


On behalf of socialism, all those tasks would be overseen by a bureaucratic stratum, which in the long run —as has always occurred— winds up as the bureau-bourgeoisie (“the accidental class,” as described by Russian academics) who appropriate the means of production and the surpluses, and plunge the working class into deeper misery.

That “working class,” harnessed to their new capitalists (the bureaucrats), would not bring new production relations with them, since these laborers still would not have understood their need to liquidate themselves as a working class and become a new class of freely associated workers…of cultured cooperativists, the new class that bears the new production relations.

The government enterprise that exploits wage labor, seeks profits and concentrates the surplus in a few hands is in fact a state capitalist company given its content…given its social character.

Its juridical state form doesn’t matter. This was what all the confusion was around concerning “state socialism,” which never transcended the limits of state monopoly capitalism. This clearly occurred in Russia but also in Cuba.

Wage labor is what characterizes the form of capitalist exploitation, while freely-associated, cooperative or autogestionario (self-managed) work is the generic form of organizing socialist labor.

For the social character of a company to be described as socialist (it doesn’t matter if the property legally belongs to the state or the collective of workers) it must be managed through socialist methods – not capitalists ones; this is to say, with cooperative and self-managerial forms of work and management by freely associated workers who are directed and managed in a collective and democratic way by the workers themselves.

This would even include the election of management, which should be revolving, and the equal distribution of part of the profits (after paying taxes and other expenses due to the state and leaving another part for the extended reproduction of the company, emergency funds and other reserves).

Even under capitalism there are properties that are legally collective, but that in and of itself doesn’t make them socialist. This is the case of the corporation, which legally belongs to its community of shareholders, a few or many of whom might work for that same company. However by organizing itself into a capitalist form of operation —that’s to say with wage labor, with hierarchical forms of management and control of the surplus by a group of owners who control most of the shares— it continues essentially as a capitalist company given its social character, even when it constitutes the first form of the decomposition of capital.

This is what they deceivingly refer to as “popular capitalism,” which capitalists sought to present as an alternative to cooperativist socialism.

Likewise, there exists property that is private by its legal form and socialist by its self-managerial social form of operation. This is the case of many small family-owned businesses, which manage the company democratically, distribute the profits equally and do not exploit wage labor.

Socialist government enterprises would be those where the state maintains the ownership of the means of production in a legal form, but where the social form of its operation is carried out in a socialist, self-managerial and cooperative manner. This would be the case of a type of company that is co-managed between the state and the workers.

By the same token, just as cooperatives are socialist firms in capitalist countries, it’s possible for there to exit in socialist countries reminiscences of capitalist companies (not in name, but because some day cooperative and self-management types of freely associated production relations will prevail), be they state, private or mixed ownership.

The interesting experience of Perfeccionamiento Empresarial (Managerial Improvement), originally conceived and applied in the Cuban armed forces (MINFAR), was a step forward in connection with the traditional statist wage-labor scheme, though still without breaking from it.

HUMOUR:

"FREE" ENTERPRISE:

CANADIAN LABOUR BRITISH COLUMBIA:
MORE ON SLAVE LABOUR IN BC:




A couple of days ago Molly blogged on the recently discovered conditions of virtual slave labour at the Khaira tree planting camp in BC. The following sort of connects with the previous post on XL Beef about dependence on leftist parties and their good graces, but it has an additional fillip. Regular readers of this blog may notice my general 'pro-union' biases, just as they may notice my biases to rational and organized anarchism (as opposed to so much of the nuttiness of North American anarchism). At the same time I am very happy to be independent of any organization as this allows me to criticize when criticism is due. i say this because of a recent post from the National Union of Public and General Employees Union (NUPGE) blaming the recently uncovered events in BC on cutbacks in the civil service in that province. Here's a reprint from Molly's first blog on this subject:



One reason the government may be hesitant about a full inquiry is that Khaira Enterprises has been a long standing supplier of labour to the province. According to the Power Profiles site they have been in business for 10-20 years with total sales of $2,000,000. As far back as 1999 they were listed as being paid $219,288 by the province. Even more astoundingly in March 2009 they were certified as 'Safe Certified' by BC Forest Safety. The latter is a quanga set up of mainly industry and government representatives but also with a nominal union representation.

Note the following. Khaira Enterprises were getting government contracts as far back as 1999. The NDP was in power in BC until 2001, and the presumed "cuts" were far in the future. Khaira Enterprises "passed inspection" way back in the "glory days" of social democracy. Also note that in 2009 Khaira Entperprises was "safe certified" which seems to say that a civil serpent did indeed inspect said business under the authority of the board of Worksafe BC which has union representation (the USW to be exact). The so-called 'Worksafe BC' was a renaming of the old BC 'Workers' Compensation Board' in 2005, continuing the trend of trying to remove responsibility for unsafe work conditions from the enterprises onto individual workers. This is a trend that has been followed in political jurisdictions governed by left wing parties as well.

What Jacques Ellul called the "political illusion" is nowhere as bluntly visible as in situations such as this. If a system is set up such that various workers are considered to have "fewer rights" than others, and if this system is governed by a political process that allows one side (the employers) to have undue influence on its process then naturally abuses will become common. One can only wonder about how many other Khaira Enterprises there are across the country, and one is not surprised about how these things occur under social democratic governments with a maximum of government employees. Simply multiplying 'inspectors' does nothing if the inspection process is biased to begin with. That's where I, as a libertarian socialist, part company with statist socialists and why I think there is a better way to ensure workers' rights than government decree.

CANADIAN LABOUR MOOSE JAW:

XL BEEF TO BE CLOSED PERMANENTLY:

After over half a year of locking out their employees XL Beef in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan has announced that they plan to close their plant permanently. Molly has blogged before on this lockout and the subsequent boycott of XL Beef products which the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (reluctantly and tardily) agreed to. The story of the closure is given below in a story from the Moose Jaw radio station CJME. Before getting into that, however, there is a lot of behind the scene details about this story that the reader should be aware of. Unions sources are suspicious that XL planned to close the plant all along. If they didn't it would seem like gross incompetence for them to dither about with temporary closures and lockouts as long as they did. If these plans were in the making for this long the actions of the company in carrying out the lockout were more than slightly deceitful and callous. Anyone who would like to say so to the parent company of XL Beef in Calgary can do so via the following contact info:

Nilsson Brothers Inc.

5101- 11th St. SE

Calgary, Alberta

T2H 1M7

phone 403-258-3233

fax 403-806-3849

Molly thinks that the union suspicions are quite accurate. To see why here are some forgotten facts about the plant. The plant originally opened as a joint private/public partnership in 1995 under the name of 'Western Canadian Beef'. At that time the Crown Investments of the Saskatchewan government owned 40% of the equity for God knows how much of the original investment. Management of the plant was turned over to the private partners whose "efficiency" ran it into the ground so that in 1998 the Crown had to take over the entire operation. The remaining 60% of the operation was purchased for $1.8 million with a government loan guarantee for $3 million for operating expenses.

Over the course of the next two years the provincial government also failed to turn a profit from the plant, and, despite the cyclical nature of the beef business, they were convinced they should unload the facility back to the private sector. In the year 2000 they sold the plant to XL Beef for a cost of $1.868 million plus, of course, a government financed loan at low interest rates of $2.368 million. Note this loan as it is important. The loan was to be paid off over 10 years.

Ten years arrived in 2010 !!! During that time the funds available from the loan were still active despite the fact that XL Beef had been in either shutdown or lockout for the better part of a year. The loan was "presumably" for operating expenses that never existed during the time of shutdown. While XL continued to pay back the government at a low interest rate they were able to apply the funds in more profitable ways all the while. When the loan was finally repaid XL had no reason to not go ahead and do what they intended all along ie close the plant. One has to wonder what uses the loan monies were put to over the years, uses remote from ensuring the profitability of the Moose Jaw plant. You gotta love the company accountants.

Let's examine the sale in 2000. The province bought the remained of the plant in 1998 for $1.8 million and sold it again in 2000 for $1.868 million. Seems about even ? Wrong ! Don't forget that the province already owned 40% of the plant in 1998. Selling both the 60% interest and the already owned 40% would have yielded a selling price of about $3 million to break even. Seems like a great deal for XL, and it was indeed.

Let's travel back to 2000 again. Labour activists in Canada are forever enraptured by the NDP and its supposed virtues. In 2000 the Saskatchewan government was NDP under Roy Romanow. In other words the beloved "left wing" NDP engineered a massive corporate giveaway that any conservative government would have drooled over. Here's the then Minister in charge of the sale John Nilson about the supposed benefits of selling the plant to XL:

"Our goals were to keep the company in business, to keep it in Moose Jaw and to prevent further financial loss for the Province"

It's 2010. The company is no longer in business in Moose Jaw. The province incurred a huge "paper loss" by selling the plant for far less than it was worth at the beginning. Given fluctuating interest rates the province may or may not have 'broken even' over the loan guarantees for the past decade. It depends on the fine details of the loan that are not open to public access.

What should have been done at the very beginning of this disaster ? Libertarian socialists as opposed to the statist socialists of the NDP would have seen the plant as a prime candidate for a "mixed cooperative". This would originally have been a tripartite partnership between the workers involved and their union, Saskatchewan beef producers and the provincial government. The monies needed would have come from exactly the same sources as XL drew upon (unless you believe the fairy tale that XL just so happened to have $1.8 million of 'spare cash' hanging around in their safe) ie loans. There should have been an agreement in place for the workers and the producers to gradually buy back the provincial equity. That sort of thing would have been the only way that it could be assured that the plant would remain to service Saskatchewan producers and consumers.

Is this alternative viable now ? Obviously not. There is a conservative provincial government in place in Regina. The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour was seriously reluctant to launch a simple boycott and did little to promote it after its announcement. The city of Moose Jaw is cash strapped and could hardly step in to replace the province. The union representing the workers the UFCW is far too weak in the province to carry out such a thing on its own. Saskatchewan beef producers are cynical and rightfully so. As a side bar to this story I can remember many years ago when an anarchist comrade from Saskatchewan who was also a cattleman attempted to organize a cooperative marketing group for Saskatchewan beef. Who were the main opponents who killed the idea by vigorous campaigning ? Full points if you guessed the NDP government.

All that Molly can say is that a few conclusions can be drawn from debacles such as this. One is that governments, including so-called 'left' governments are by their very nature treacherous, and that one should never depend on them and always keep them under close scrutiny. Another is that a cooperative alternative should always be first and foremost in examining what can be done about economic questions. The whole idea never occurred to anyone's mind in 2000, but if it had the story would have been quite different today.

Enough of the lecture. Here's the story from Moose Jaw.

CLCLCLCLCL
XL Beef lays off 200, closes its doors permanently in Moose Jaw
Blames market conditions and lack of collective agreement with union

It's been a very unlucky Friday the 13th for employees of XL Beef in Moose Jaw -- almost 200 picketing workers have been permanently laid off.

A letter from XL Beef says the closure is for business and economic reasons, blaming market conditions and that they still don't have a new bargaining agreement with the union that represents employees at the plant.

"We've maintained all along that we're willing to negotiate, that the people go back to work and negotiate a fair and equitable contract," said Norm Neault, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1400.

"I don't think we've been the ones holding this up by stretch of the means. We haven't taken a strike vote and I guess the company, for the lack of a better word, gave up on that.

"They've got their interest in Alberta which is where their negotiating right now and I think that's on their horizon. I think Moose Jaw has been part of their plans for quite some time now."

Nilsson Bros, the parent company of XL Foods out of Alberta, have declined to comment.
The facility was initially shut down last spring due to market conditions. Employees were supposed to be back to work in the fall of 2009. Just days before they were to return, employees were locked out by XL Beef and a labour dispute began. Union members have been walking the picket line ever since.

The letter from XL Beef says the plant will be permanently closed within 90 days.

While the union tries to get all of the loose ends under control, Moose Jaw's mayor is voicing his disappointment in the decision -- saying this is terrible news for the city.

Mayor Glenn Hagel has been in touch with Nilsson Bros, the parent company of XL Foods in Alberta.

"They called to advise that they were making their decision," he said. "They assured me that there wasn't anything that the City of Moose Jaw did or didn't do that influenced their decision and indicated that their decision was final."

If there is anything that the employees can look forward to, it's the opening of the pork plant -- that facility opens in the new year.


With reporting by Chris Rasmussen, CHAB Moose Jaw.

INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY:

THE LEMONADE REVOLT:

The following call to action may be somewhat dated as the latest news from the Oregonian is that the local government there has backed down, and , yes, the little girl can set up her lemonade stand without a "temporary restaurant licence". Her family has even received an apology. Still I reprint the following Facebook call for a "lemonade revolt" because the whole thing is quite instructive.

What do incidents like this say ? To sum it up it's the old adage of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile". By that I mean the supposed "service" agencies of government and their "help". Now it is doubtlessly true that institutions such as health departments do indeed do some useful work though it is possible that what they accomplish could be better done by voluntary non-governmental organizations. Yet it is in the nature of the bureaucratic beast to constantly expand its range of action regardless of whether it is doing its previous job well or not. In other words such organizations are too often quite lax in their original mandate, but you can be assured that they will always be on the prowl for new things to control.

We had a recent incidence of this here in Winnipeg with the sad death of the late lamented "beer snake" (more on this later I hope). The inevitable tendency of any governmental agency to continually expand its range of action is the reason why I am very reluctant to support any new initiative of this sort no matter what the purported benefits and why I am generally not too upset on those rare occasions when the octopus of state control loses its grip on one of its tentacles.

A case in point is the recent abandonment of the compulsory long form census here in Canada. This is one of those rare occasions where I actually approve of an action of our federal government. This change has generated all sorts of opposition ranging from linguistic minorities , academics who will lose their data mines and unions all the way "up" to all those lovely folks that send you junk mail. Approving of this change can easily make you quite unpopular because so many groups have an axe to grind over this, and I'm sure that the data is quite convenient or even necessary for many of those who wish to keep the form. On the other hand the majority of the population who aren't making money or gaining power from using such data are quite thrilled to see this compulsion go. It is a laudable change as it is one less compulsion that the average citizen has to undergo. In the end it speaks volumes about the lack of grassroots democracy in our country that the 'social planners' are so unacquainted with those the rule (excuse me "serve") that they have to have the government as a data gatherer.

All that, however, is aside from the matter at hand. The basic story of what follows is that in Portland Oregon a 7 year old girl was setting up a lemonade stand at a neighbourhood fair. Within 20 minutes the county health inspector descended on her demanding that she produce a $120 "temporary restaurant license". Huh ? The inspector then demanded that she pack up and leave despite loud support from the crowd. You can read the full story here. This little act of petty tyranny was seen by one Michael Franklin who was at a booth next to the girl's. Even when the first inspector called in another to help intimidate the girl and her mother the crowd surrounding them was quite hostile, and the inspectors "felt intimidated". Tsk, tsk ! Franklin later publicized the incident on his Bottom Up Radio Network and called for the 'Lemonade Revolt'. We'll see what happens on the last Thursday of this month.

LLLLLLLLLL
The Lemonade Revolt!
----------------------------
Location EVERYWHERE! ALL THE TIME! EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE! if you are in Cascadia...Last Thursday on Alberta St. between 25th and 26th street. BUT, make it happen where you live!

----------------------------
Created By Michael Franklin

---------------------------

More Info

On last thursday in July, on Alberta and 26th, a young girl was cheerfully setting up her lemonade stand. This was her first time doing this, and with her mother, she planned on selling lemonade for 50 cents a cup. No more than 20 minutes later, two state employees with badges informed her that if she did not desist, she would face a $500 fine.

We, as anarchists and community members, informed the mother that if she stayed again...st the wishes of the state, we would defend her. We suggested a donation based stand. They tried that and the state workers, two women with clipboards and badges, returned and demanded they stop. We surrounded these workers and informed them of our sovereignty, that this is an autonomous zone, and they not only have no authority here, but they must leave the area. They went to the police.

The mother, who feared for losing her new job and out of heartbreak of seeing her daughter crushed and in tears, decided it was time to go. We made appeals to the crowd, but to no real avail, as people just kept walking by. This is bullshit and must be met with creative action.

We are proposing a lemonade bloc next last Thursday(the last Thursday of August- Molly ). Get together with your friends and family and come up with a creative lemonade. Rosemary, lavender, mint, honey, agave, mate, carob, what the fuck ever you can come up with, show up early on alberta and 25th to 26th streets around 11 or 12 in the daytime, set up a table and offer lemonade for donation, or free. We should fill the entire bloc with lemonade stands! The state will come, but we will NOT leave. We will fill the streets with dance and revelry in the spirit of last Thursday's origins, an autonomous, anarchistic freak show that reclaims the streets, the neighborhoods and our lives.

This is symbolic in one sense, but absurd and beautiful direct action in another. Please do not blow this off! Let's make a horrible mess for the state! When the state gives you lemons....GIVE THE STATE HELL!

You can choose to donate money made from lemonade to throwing a block party for families, or anything else you want to do with it, the point is to do it!

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR GREECE:

GREEK TRUCKERS END STRIKE:

Striking truck drivers in Greece voted late yesterday to end their week long walkout, and they are expected to resume normal work on Monday. While many drivers refused to obey the "civil mobilization" order (a back-to-work order with military draft provisions) the government managed to commandeer enough trucks that, with their own vehicles, they were well on the way to restocking fuel supplies across the country. It 9is doubtful if this would have been a long term viable solution, but it was enough to force the truckers back to work.

A few comments are in order. The first is that this strike, unlike the symbolic general strikes of the opposition to the government's austerity program (or the even more ineffective aimless rioting of the left wing of the opposition), actually posed a real economic threat, and it prompted the state into action that it has usually held back from during the course of the present crisis. It also showed coincidentally the futility of any dreams of overthrowing the government. It would be a simple "turn of the tap", and a revolutionary Greece would rapidly become a collapsed revolutionary Greece being as all Greece's energy needs are supplied from abroad.

This may highlight the essential nature of the government/population confrontation ie stalemate with time on the side of the government. The opposition cannot play the 'ultimate threat' card. They know it. The government knows it. The general population knows it. The only ones who don't know it are a small number of romantic revolutionaries. The nature of the Greek crisis is also such that any alternative to the present socialist government would inevitably end up acting just as it does today, the conservatives because they would want to, and the communists and left-socialists because they would have to. A Greek government of any stripe would be severely constrained in its options. This situation presents the classic dilemma whereby politics, of the governmental variety, is absolutely futile. Yet it is also a situation where revolution would be equally futile.

Of course only a tiny minority of Greeks would dream of trying to go beyond the present system. The most overwhelming thing to notice about the opposition to the government's plan is how incredibly conservative, in the sense of trying to avoid any change, that it is. The struggles against the government are not for some new dispensation but rather to preserve a system of "entitlements" that various sectors of the working population see as in their interest or perhaps even vital to their interests. In the case of the truckers one can feel some sympathy for them because they have forked out huge amounts of money for exclusive licences in a sector which the government now intends to throw totally open. See the article below. This leaves the present truckers with huge debts and lower revenue.

So where does this leave the opposition to the Greek version of neoliberalism ? We can speak of rocks and hard places. For the left socialist and communist opponents it means keeping up the level of visible militancy in hopes of leaving a lasting memory that can be used for later political gain. In the case of the workers it means very much the same thing except that the goal is not any future political gain but rather the softening of the impact of the measures in the near future by a protracted period of bargaining with their enemy the state.

The anarchist opposition, small as it is (though far bigger than in most countries) ? The "concentration of mind" that the present crisis is forcing people to go through is hardly likely to result in a flow of public opinion to revolutionary strategies, anarchist or otherwise. The precise opposite is the likely result, and clinging to the old romantic shibboleths cannot make the anarchist alternative seem desirable in the public mind. Whether Greek anarchists can find their way through to a long term strategy that gradually builds the libertarian alternative without the deus-ex-machina of revolution is very much in question. It is, however, the only way to escape from the ghettoization that they presently suffer.

Here's the story of the end of the strike from the Sydney Morning Herald , bright and early on the other side of the world.

GSGSGSGSGS
Greek truckers end week-long strike

JOHN HADOULIS

Greek truckers have called off a week-long strike that stranded thousands of travellers and nearly dried up fuel around the country at the peak of the busy tourism season.

"We have decided, by narrow majority, to suspend the strike," the head of the Greek truck owners confederation, George Tzortzatos, told reporters on Sunday after a union meeting that lasted over three hours.

"Transporters will be back at the steering wheel as of tomorrow," he said.

The strikers backed down after the government sent out military and private trucks under police escort to bypass the protest and resupply hospitals, electricity plants and petrol stations in main cities.

Businesses ranging from hotels and car rentals to peach exporters have been badly hit by the strike, which began last Sunday over plans to reform the tightly-controlled freight sector for the first time in four decades.

Thousands of Greek and foreign travellers had to put their plans on hold or were stranded as fuel supplies dwindled to a trickle in main cities and holiday destinations such as Crete and the northern Halkidiki peninsula, with conditions only starting to improve on Saturday.

The truckers on Sunday said they would hold talks with the government over the reform which is designed to open the sector to full competition within three years, as part of efforts to revive the recession-mired Greek economy.

After talks with trucker unions collapsed, the authorities on Wednesday moved to requisition vehicles, but fuel all but ran out at major cities and travel destinations during the two days it took to implement the measure.

Meanwhile many drivers flouted the civil mobilisation order, tearing up their summons and refusing to turn up for work despite threats of prosecution.

At the main Greek port of Piraeus, the local trader association said many of the islands popular with holidaymakers had not been resupplied for days.

"The resupply of islands has been non-existent,"Piraeus trader association chairman George Zissimatos told Mega television.

"A lot of goods remained in warehouses, ten days were lost and now wholesalers are about to go on holiday themselves," he said.

A breakthrough finally came late on Saturday after the government said it would lift the civil mobilisation if the truckers closed down their protest.

No new trucking licenses have been issued in Greece for years, meaning that would-be operators can only purchase existing permits at high cost.

But the truckers complain that inviting competition into the freight sector by reducing new licence charges is unfair to existing operators who have already paid high start-up fees running up to 300,000 euros ($A436,047).

Greece has suffered waves of strikes and protests over unprecedented budget cuts and reforms the government had to agree to in order to tap a rescue package it desperately needed to stave off bankruptcy.

A debt default was narrowly averted in May after Greece received a huge bailout loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Faced with nearly 300 billion euros ($A436.05 billion) of debt, it found itself unable to raise money on international markets in April as concerns mounted about the ability of the Greek economy to stay afloat.

LOCAL EVENTS WINNIPEG:

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE PROVINCES FORUM:

Here's an upcoming public forum to be held here in Winnipeg on August 4. I have to say that this sort of thing makes me somewhat "itchy" and not just because its sponsors such as the 'Council of Canadians' are in most other circumstances advocates of centralization in the Canadian federation. It's also because their presumed "strategy" of reducing carbon emissions via delegation of responsibility to the provinces would only get 'self-interested support' in an unequivocal manner in two Canadian provinces - Québec and Manitoba. Their invocation of Ontario is, in my mind doubtful even with Ontario's commitment to nuclear power thrown in for good measure, and as for the other provinces..forget it. I could go on and on about the "political illusion" here, but I'll leave that to the readers' imagination. I also think that arguments about provincial/federal responsibilities in terms of power generation are very much beside the point as the real argument is local/municipal versus all other levels of government. The old anarchist argument about localism versus statism. All that aside here's the promo for the meeting.

WWWWWWWW
Public forum on Trade threats to provincial leadership on climate change

------------------------

Location Buchwald room, Millenium Library .
251 Donald St.
Winnipeg, MB

------------------------
Wednesday, August 4

7:00 – 9:00 pm

Buchwald Room, Millennium Library ( 251 Donald Street )
...


Faced with federal impotence on the climate file, Canada 's provinces are taking independent steps to reduce their carbon consumption. At the same time, new international trade agreements, such as the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), that the provinces are actively negotiating alongside the Harper government threaten to undermine these new provincial efforts to mitigate climate change.



The Ontario Green Energy Act, which prioritizes locally produced renewable energy, is one example of the kind of forward-looking policy the provinces should be adopting. But European trade negotiators are putting enormous pressure on federal and provincial governments to get rid of local content or sustainable sourcing requirements that are necessary to help Canadian communities and companies transition away from dirty energy, and create good, green jobs. Efforts to phase-out tar sands production are also compromised by these trade agreements.



On the eve of the 2010 meeting of the Council of the Federation in Winnipeg, come learn more about this provincial contradiction -- between a need to move further and faster than the Harper government on climate change and a willingness to compromise environmental policy in trade deals -- and why the provincial governments need to reject any trade deals with Europe or other countries that threaten their shift toward sustainability.


Featuring:
Steve Guilbeault, Co - Founder and Deputy Director, Equiterre
Brendan Reimer, Prairies & Northern Territories Coordinator, CCEDNet
Stuart Trew, National Trade Campaigner, Council of Canadians


Presented by the Council of Candians Winnipeg Chapter and Climate Action Network Canada - Reseau action climat Canada

CANADIAN LABOUR/CANADIAN POLITICS:

GREEN ECONOMY NETWORK LAUNCHED:

This past Earth Day which Molly successfully ignored the Green Economy Network was founded. This is a collaborative effort on the part of a large number of Canadian labour, environmental and social justice groups, and is dedicated to promoting "green jobs" in the Canadian context. Here's their self introduction from their website. All very well, though I have some doubts about the statist methods which they intend to use to promote their goals. The federal government should do this, and the federal government should do that, etc.,etc.,etc.. Little attention seems to have been given to either local or cooperative initiatives. Yet such initiatives are the very ones that could actually both invoke the greatest public participation/enthusiasm and generate the greatest number of jobs. Dependence upon government, especially the federal government, is like depending on giant corporations. Much will be lost in waste, and what results is not necessarily the best outcome in terms of either ecology or employment. For what it is worth, however, here is their introduction.

GEGEGEGEGEGEGEGE
Vision Statement--Green Economy Network
We have come together as members of unions, environmental and social justice organizations to form a common front of civil society groups for the building of a green economy in Canada. In so doing, we realize we are living in one of those critical moments of history wherein urgent decisions and actions must be taken that will ultimately affect our destiny as a people, a nation, and the planet itself.



Like most of the world, Canadians continue to experience the turbulence of an ongoing global economic crisis. It is increasingly evident that the current economic model is broken. Any economic recovery based on a simple return to the old status quo would risk being a feeble and jobless one. At the same time, this economic crisis both augments and is compounded by an environmental crisis, highlighted by the alarming advance of climate change and global warming that now threatens civilization and global ecosystems. In turn, this environmental crisis is further reinforced by an emerging energy crisis in which our societal addiction to fossil fuels is now threatened by diminishing conventional and cheap oil supplies. What’s more, our economy and society are seriously plagued by an equity crisis of increasing poverty marked by growing gender, race and class disparities.



We believe the time has come to chart a new model and direction for Canada’s economy. This country can no longer afford an economic model that treats the natural environment and human beings as disposable goods. Instead, Canadians need to rethink our manufacturing processes, the way we use and generate energy, and the ways we construct our buildings. We need to rethink the way we transport ourselves, move goods, use water, fuel industries, and heat our homes and businesses. In doing so, we also need to break our addiction to fossil fuels and overcome the poverty and inequalities that plague our society. In short, we need to build a green economy that transforms the mode of production and consumption in our society, makes existing jobs more environmentally sustainable, and simultaneously creates new decent paying, full time, safe and healthy green jobs in all sectors of society, to address the pressing economic and social inequalities of our time.



Although both the public and private sectors have key roles to play in building a green economy for the future, we maintain that governments and publicly-owned institutions must now take the lead, since they alone have the tools to marshal resources of the magnitude and speed necessary for this kind of economic transformation. Through public sector-led investments and infrastructure, sound regulation and targeted incentives, governments can stimulate the private sector to play a key role in greening the major industrial sectors of the economy ­-­ such as manufacturing, resource, transportation, and construction industries. Moreover, much of the impetus for creating green jobs is going to come from local and regional economies where people live and work in closer relationship with their environment.



As civil society organizations, we are committed to make every effort to inspire Canadians to join in building an economy aimed at providing good green jobs for all, so that current and future generations can meet their needs while living in harmony with each other and the ecosystems that support human life and prosperity. To advance this transition to a real green economy, we will vigorously advocate concrete proposals and organize campaign activities designed to meet the pressing environmental, energy and equity challenges of our times. In doing so, we will make use of all the educational tools at our disposal, not only to inform and animate our members and the public at large, but to cultivate a broad-based movement for a green economy in this country and in solidarity with like-minded movements around the world.




It is only by progressively developing, step-by-step, a new economic model in Canada ­-­ one which is clean and sustainable, just and participatory ­-­ that we have any hope of contributing to the building of a better world in the 21st century and protecting the biosphere for succeeding generations to come.

CANADIAN POLITICS- BRITISH COLUMBIA:

ANTI-HST CAMPAIGN IN BC:

Who would ever have thought that the Moll and the Zalm could agree on anything ? It's true. Ex-Premier Bill Vander Zalm of BC has launched a campaign to repeal that province's Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), and I have to say that I'm in full agreement, though undoubtedly for different reasons than Bill may have. Here's the story from the Straight Goods website. See the end of this article for my own opinions as to why I support such a campaign.

BCBCBCBCBCBCBCBC
"Fight HST" campaign launches

Group has 90 days to collect signatures for repeal.

by Bill Tieleman

Former BC Premier Bill Vander Zalm will launch the Fight HST citizens Initiative petition campaign to stop the Harmonized Sales Tax in BC Premier Gordon Campbell's own riding of Vancouver-Point Grey on Tuesday April 6.

The public rally April 6 marks the beginning of the 90 days that "Fight HST" has to collect the signatures of 10 percent of registered BC voters in each of the province's 85 constituencies for the Initiative petition to be accepted by Elections BC, says Fight HST Lead Organizer Chris Delaney.

"The HST takes money out of people's pockets but doesn't put a dime into healthcare, education or important services," said Vander Zalm



Vander Zalm says it was important to launch the campaign right in Premier Gordon Campbell's own riding, to send a clear message to the BC Liberal government.

"British Columbians don't want Premier Campbell's HST — not even in his own riding," said Vander Zalm. "If Premier Campbell and the BC Liberal MLAs don't listen to the people and drop the HST, he and his party are finished."

Vander Zalm says he is confident British Columbians will make the Initiative a smashing success after drawing huge crowds as he toured across the province over the past two weeks.

"British Columbians are fed up with the HST and fed up with the undemocratic way Premier Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen are imposing a tax after promising they wouldn't do it," said Vander Zalm. "This citizens Initiative petition is the people's chance to tell Premier Gordon Campbell they want him to drop the HST — and demand that he drop it."

"The HST is the most hated tax ever because it is a cruel tax that takes money out of people's pockets but doesn't put a dime into healthcare, education or important services," said Vander Zalm.

In addition to Vander Zalm, speakers at the rally will include Delaney and "Fight HST" Strategist Bill Tieleman, founder of the NO BC HST Facebook protest group, which has more than 131,000 members.


Bill Tieleman, president of West Star Communications, is one of BC's best known political commentators and communicators. Read political commentary from Bill every Tuesday in 24 hours, Vancouver's free weekday newspaper (also online). Listen to Bill on Mondays at 10am on CKNW AM 980's Bill Good Show, in Vancouver, BC. Bill's email address is below.

Email: weststar@telus.net . Website: http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/ .

BCBCBCBCBCBCBCBC

Here's a report from the CBC on what happened at last night's rally.

BCBCBCBCBCBCBCBC
Vander Zalm's anti-HST rally draws hundreds in Vancouver
Several hundred concerned taxpayers turned out to hear former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm launch his anti-HST petition Tuesday night in Vancouver.

Vander Zalm's supporters filled the auditorium of Kitsilano Secondary School to hear him criticize Premier Gordon Campbell's surprise introduction of the harmonized sales tax just weeks after the provincial election last May.

The 12 per cent tax goes into effect July 1, replacing the seven per cent PST and five per cent GST.

"If you want to make something bad look good, you have to lie, and you have to lie over and over, and that's what's been happening," Vander Zalm told the crowd.

But not everyone who turned out Tuesday night agreed the tax would be bad for taxpayers. One man said his mother's benefits would actually increase under the HST.

But Vander Zalm challenged him, saying vulnerable people will still be hurt by the new tax.

The former premier also criticized the timing of the introduction of a harmonized tax that will apply to many good and services that were previously exempt from the PST, such as restaurant food, hair cuts and sports club memberships.

"We're in a recession folks," he said. "We were hoping to come out of it. We were hoping to come out of it soon, but these people in Victoria are only digging us deeper down.

"We're going to suffer. Industry and our businesses and all of us will suffer with it. It's a bad tax at a bad time for the wrong reasons."

Recent university graduate Katherine Chan agreed with that sentiment.

"I'm planning to get married, you know, buy a house, build a family, and, seriously, I can't even feed myself now. How am I going to, like, you know, support my own kids?" she said.

Thousands of volunteers collecting signatures
Vander Zalm is aiming to get rid of the tax by forcing the province to hold an initiative vote on the issue, but first, he needs to collect thousands of signatures on a petition supporting his draft bill.

So far, the veteran campaigner has signed up nearly 2,000 volunteers from ridings across B.C. to help him collect the estimated 300,000 voter signatures required to trigger an initiative vote, which is similar to a referendum.

Speaking before the rally, he said told CBC News he has seen a lot of hectic days in his 25-plus years in politics, "but I've never ever experienced anything like this."

"I have faxes coming in and going out till my fax machine is heating up. My telephone has never stopped ringing. And the e-mails? I hate to look at the computer," he said.

About 300 people signed the petition at the rally on Tuesday night, but volunteers have already begun collecting signatures across B.C.

Those organizing the petition have 90 days to collect signatures from 10 per cent of registered voters in every riding. Then Elections BC has to verify the signatures.

Once that is done, a legislative committee would then decide whether it will send a draft bill directly to the legislature for a vote or put the issue to a province-wide vote first.

But the provincial government has already said the HST is a federal tax, and an initiative vote wouldn't affect it.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/07/bc-anti-hst-rally-vander-zalm-vancouver.html?ref=rss#ixzz0kTxDjz2e

BCBCBCBCBCBCBCBC

WHY MOLLY LIKES THIS IDEA:

Here are a few reasons why I think the anti-HST campaign is a good idea. Some of these reasons, I'm sure, are shared by the traditional leftists over at Straight Goods. Others are unique to a libertarian socialist perspective.

1) Value added taxes (sales taxes) are regressive. They impact people at the lower end of income distribution more than they affect those with higher incomes. If we have to have taxes they should be progressive, affecting those with higher income more or at least equally distributed. Not only is a greater percentage of upper class income devoted to savings and investment, and therefore exempt from a consumption tax, but a higher percentage of their consumption is also exempt from same. Think tax shelters, consumption in foreign countries, "benefits" as opposed to salary/wages etc..

2) Value added taxes are invariably favoured by corporations and opposed by small business. This is especially the case with the Harmonized Sales Tax where it has been introduced in various Canadian provinces. This is because such taxes favours the large, just as it does with individuals, and reduces the income of small business. Think of the hairdresser who now has to charge 12% on their labour. Small business has no legal way of escaping this sudden increase in their prices and extra accounting costs- and resulting lower sales- while corporations, especially those producing for export have a multitude of such escape hatches, let alone the ability to simply pass on extra accounting costs to the customer.

3) In connection with this the introduction of the HST in various provinces has actually been a sly way of introducing extra categories of taxable items, most particularly making labour provincially taxable. This increases the general tax burden for the consumer, especially those in lower income brackets. Put truthfully this legislation that taxes things previously exempt from at least provincial tax (the major effect of harmonization) reduces personal consumption and adversely affects the major generator of new employment in most developed societies - small business. Such taxes thus have a depressing effect on the economy that is greater than that of another initiative such as simply increasing income tax.

4) While I don't think that the introduction of a referendum process in Canadian politics is a major democratic reform it is at least a minor step to making our society more democratic. Real democracy would involve a much more radical decentralization (and "de-statization"). BC actually has a referendum process in legislation, but any attempt to put it into practice has been stillborn in every case. This protest has the potential to actually make the process a reality rather than empty rhetoric. That would be nice to see. From the final sentence of the last article above the government of BC is already thinking of ways to weasel out of this law. What they say is, of course, an outrageous lie. The decision to sign up for the HST is very much a provincial matter.

5) Far too much of our politics has been "spectacularized" into image versus substance. This particular campaign is all about substance. It is also heartening that it seems to be gathering support from both the right and the left. One of the worst aspects of "politics as spectacle" is the creation of both a right and a left that rarely articulate policy but do spend their time in petty sniping and in creating fantastical images of each other. Campaigns such as this move beyond this artificial divide.

6) As a libertarian socialist, as opposed to the statist form of socialism that is the image of socialism in most people's minds, I know that socialism cannot be created through government but only by gradually reducing the role of government and increasing the role of cooperative and local institutions. Sooner or later this has to involve the shrinking of the fiscal resources available to government. The big question is in what order you pare away the functions of the state, not whether you prune them or not. There will be no miraculous revolution that suddenly turns government organizations into cooperative ones controlled by the people affected. It will be a long and slow slog. It might as well start with resistance to increases in the fiscal power of government. that's what this campaign is.

CANADIAN POLITICS:

A NEW REGINA MANIFESTO:

The Regina Manifesto which was the founding document of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (the CCF, later to be the NDP) is mostly of antiquarian interest today. Social democracy in Canada has strayed far from its idealistic roots, becoming both more reformist, in the bad sense, and also much more statist than it once was. Today even the statist parts of socialism, let alone the idea that the cooperative way is a legitimate alternative to government direction, are basically a thing of the past. Cooperativism has found its major home outside the party. Not that there aren't those, however, in the present NDP who would like to see a revival of these ideals. One of these is Pierre Ducasse, a once candidate for leadership of the federal party. The following is a recent article published at his Ecodema blog. M. Ducasse is, for sure, not an anarchist in any sense, but he represents the better part of social democracy, the part that preserves at least some of the ideals of socialism.

CPCPCPCPCPCPCP

The New Regina Manifesto?:

A Work in Progress
I'm at it again. Can't leave the CCF alone. I've been reworking the Regina Manifesto, reframing it in largely non-statist terms, as if guild socialists had written the Regina Manifesto rather than Fabians. It is also framed in term of an actual cooperative rather than as a political party per se. Historically cooperatives have played both roles concurrently. I invite others to join in the fun. What I've whipped up so far is in the extended entry.

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America will not rest until it has brought the values of life, liberty and happiness into every enterprise in America and has put into full operation a cooperative and collaborative platform for an open economy throughout the whole of America.

CCF is a free association of individuals, organizations and communities whose purpose is the establishment of a cooperative commonwealth in which production, distribution and exchange are openly arranged for social purposes and the defense of our common cultural heritage.

The CCF aims to replace the closed corporate system that has been used by the privileged corporate interests of Wall Street mercantilists and their K-Street hirelings to enclose Main Street America's credit, investment, productive capacity and access of each and every American in Mexico, Canada, USA and elsewhere to a free and participative marketplace. This corporate enclosure has limited the progress of communities, entrepreneurs and companies alike. An open economy of enterprise formation and shared capital accumulation will supersede the closed corporate framework and replace it with an open framework in which enterprise is freed to participate in a self-governing, decentralized and federated economic democracy.

The principles of economic democracy at the heart of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America has the power to lift communities, families and working people from poverty into prosperity, rewards achievement for work and entrepreneurship and eliminates the means for the anti-social formation of privileged wealth. The Cooperative Commonwealth of North America contends in marketplaces and marketspaces against the closed corporate system and its fruits: in an age of plenty it condemns working people and whole communities to poverty and insecurity. Closed Corporate Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of investment bankers, asset-strippers and hedge fund speculators and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed.

Under the rule of these latter-day merchantilists the drive for a monopoly on credit and access to capital leaves the productive world high and dry and working Americans tossed to-and-fro between periods of manic and wasteful activity in which the main benefits go to Wall Street speculators, investment bankers and the industrial-military-financial complex of war profiteers, and then to yet another round of catastrophic depression, in which the already precarious situation of insecurity and hardship of people alienated from their birthright is compounded. We believe that these evils can be removed by free people committed to building a free and open economy together where the means of production, distribution and credit creation are socially-held within the partnership-based framework of open enterprise models.

The new social, political and economic order can not be achieved by partisan political means, nor can it be achieved by redistributive taxation nor by the nationalization of businesses. The aim of the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America will be achieved by creating an economic democracy that shares a common operating system with that of the political republic. The CCF knows that no political republic can long guarantee liberty to individuals and to society as a whole without the presence of a strong civil, participatory and democratic marketplace.
This social and economic transformation can be brought about by the action of a social movement inspired by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and dedicated to the practical application of USA's founding values of life, liberty and reward for honest achievement. We believe in change effected by Main Street's working people, entrepreneurs and companies as they work collaboratively and in solidarity toward their social and economic agenda in the marketplace on a daily basis.

We consider a purely partisan framework for the transformation we seek for our communities and companies to be wholly inadequate. While the activist base of North America's political parties of left, right and center hold many values in common with the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America there are a number of reasons why political parties in North America have often failed to serve as agents of social, political and economic transformation.

Despite the differences voiced in the heat of political campaigning there is often little difference in the measures taken by parties once forming their governments. It is the tendency of parties of government and opposition both to carry on government affairs in accordance with the aims of those interests, mostly closed corporate interests, that finance them while marginalizing the social capital that exists in their activist base. Seeking to effect a revolutionary social and economic transformation in such an environment is much like trying to steer a ship from the bow. The power of the closed corporate mercantilists that we challenge is exercised by their having control of the economic rudder.

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America aims to guide the political ship of state by empowering the people to grab a hold on the economic rudder that directs the political ship. Consequently the CCF of North America is a democratic social movement that organizes farmers, workers, entrepreneurs and communities to act on its social and economic agenda in the marketplace as well as advocate its doctrine and principles in the course of governance. Therefore the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America is financed by its own members and by investors who support its social and economic programs. It conducts its affairs solely by constitutional means in accordance with the constitutions of Canada, USA and Mexico. It appeals to all the liberty-loving people of North America who believe that the time has come now for a far-reaching restructuring of our economic, social and political relationships, and that the field of liberty is white and ready for the harvest of prosperity to those who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work while it is yet day, put their shoulder to the wheel and thrust in their sickles with all their might to the end of carrying out the following projects and programs:
1. Establishing a General System for Open Corporate Enterprise Models
2. Reestablishing the Credit Commons

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America advocates a decoupling of its affiliated enterprises from speculative financial arrangements and draws upon the concepts of Social Credit, The Theory of Monetary Emissions and Open Capital to fashion a creditary system that has the power to sustain a free and open economy. A creditary system in conformance with our objectives
(I) issues credit not as debt but as 'equity carried forward' as Chris Cook (http://www.opencapital.net ) and Thom Greco advocates.
(II)separates banking into 3 distinct departments namely an issuing (monetary department), financial department and capital department to prevent asset-price bubbles that arise from an over supply of fixed capital that in turn results in an excess of production over consumption. This departmentalization of banking is advocated in Bernard Schmitt's Theory of Monetary Emissions (http://www.csbancari.ch/istituti/RMElab/bibliography.htm ).
(III)The formation of a beneficially-held pool of productive capacity and capability in the form of a Capital Account constituting the 'Real Credit' of society from which credit may be issued debt free to all consumers and households on a statistically controlled basis to effect non-inflationary and non-deflationary market clearing. This is the course of action advised by advocates of Social Credit.

All of these measures may be undertaken by non-governmental bodies affiliated with the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America and in collaboration with government jurisdictions.
3. Co-Operative Institutions and Open Capital Partnerships
4. Farming, Ecology and Economy
5. Inter-regional Trade and Development Compacts