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Grabbing the Bull by the Horns

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Remember, Steve Harper is an evangelical Christian, just like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Mel Gibson

We are becoming the bad guys, and this individual has a lot to do with it.

We have turned our backs on the non-aligned, or Third World, nations we once lead. We have secured unpopular and aggressive allies, some of them threats to world peace and global economic stability, while turning away from the peacekeeping initiatives we were once internationally lauded for. Because of a mass inferiority complex, we’ve decided to support killing as opposed to making lives better, worth living. And we call the poor who die for our national vanity heroes, or worse, warriors. Stephen Harper and the Tories want you to be proud of your warriors, your heroes – proud of what is all I can ask.

We have a federal government that claims a majority and ‘mandate to govern’ though it was elected by scarcely 24% of the eligible voters. We have a government that rejects facts and empirical research for its ‘gut’ instincts and faith in faith alone operating procedure. We elect ‘conservatives’ who conserve nothing, and waste as though it was their right to do so by birth. Our elected ‘leaders’ lack vision, lack leadership, lack competence. We prioritize engine-less fighters designed to fight someone else’s wars over preventing hunger, disease and unemployment. We call ourselves a developed nation, yet refuse to take an active role in development. We reward criminals for screwing the People, and give them life-long Senate appointments. Worse still, because we are lazy, because we refuse to be responsible for ourselves, we live lives of peace and tranquility at the cost of other people’s happiness. We deny others what we take for granted, and for the most part, we have the gall to ask them why they don’t get their shit together? Our pride is a dangerous self-delusion.

And perhaps the less said about human rights, civil liberties and the right to exercise one’s freedom of speech and assembly, the better. The Harper Administration’s brutal repression of dissent since 2006 is shameful for a nation founded on social-democratic principles, such as our own lest Mr. Harper forgot about that. Never before have our fundamental human rights been so consistently violated as they’ve been for the past few years. Police and security forces have been given carte-blanche to abuse while the appointed care-taker federal government introduces bill after bill designed to repress Canadian progressivism and sew greater divisions between the diverse elements of Canadian society. They must be stopped at all costs. How much longer can we afford to be governed by such myopic and self-indulgent swine as this?

I thought the title was apt given its multiple uses. For one, we need to get a grip on the bullshit machine in Ottawa, Toronto and Montréal which has been pumping out regressive, repressive propaganda on behalf of the Tories (and in the name of media balance, which is a whole other steaming pile of BS anyways), inasmuch as we need to grab our economy by the horns and reign it in. We’re far too dependent on foreign investment and non-renewable resource extraction because its a quick buck, but it leaves nothing for ourselves, nor for future generations. Where is our industry? Where are the infrastructure mega projects? These tend not to happen under Tory governments, because they don’t want the responsibility of actually creating and developing a strong, planned economy. No, no – they’d prefer it was dictated by greed, apathy and foreign resource speculation. Well excuse me if I’m not convinced this is the best way to go. No nation has evolved with this as their economic foundation, not at all. Instead, nations like this inevitably fail, with kleptocrats flying high on the taxpayer’s buck before a popular revolution throws them out of power. Is this the path we’d like to go down? I fear we may have gone too far down this road already, as cabinet ministers were rewarded with lucrative government contracts (see Tony Clement’s cash-grab during the 2010 G8/G20 Summit in his Muskoka riding), and defence ministers use search-and-rescue helicopters to pick them up from their vacations.

We’ve dropped the ball and allowed the bottom-feeders into the halls of power. They must be removed, we must take control of our nation, to ensure our future prosperity, to eliminate corruption and graft and to ensure our nation is renown internationally for the good deeds it does. Accepting anything less is frankly unpatriotic, I dare say perhaps even treasonous.

Perhaps it will be the grand moment of self-realization and awakening we are looking for, but Canada’s youth have a responsibility, to themselves and for posterity, to ensure an autocrat like Stephen Harper never has a chance to mis-manage our nation’s affairs again. We deserve better and must demand more from ourselves. Let this be our clarion call.

A modest proposal, Cultural commentary, Economic commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue

The Big Picture

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I’ve been having trouble coming up with something to talk about. I have to thank Wikipedia author Chicoutimi for updating the entry for ‘Greater Montreal’ with this graphic, which got me thinking on a different level. The City of Montréal is represented in dark blue, with independent communities within the Metropolitan Region coloured pale blue. I would personally consider some of the grey areas to the left (like that part near Oka, or Valleyfield, Les Cedres etc) to be a part of the metro region, and I’m not sure the borders are laid out perfectly, but either way you get the big picture – Montréal anchors a massive metropolitan region with a population of nearly 4 million people (StatsCan predicts it will pass that number within two or three years, with about half that number residing on the Island of Montréal). Moreover, Metro Montréal is Canada’s densest metro region, with about 900 people per square kilometre, and that number is expected to quickly reach about 1,000 people per square kilometre within the next few years.

Perhaps you can imagine my frustration, looking at a map such as this and considering the economic power of 4 million people, when I see all these independent communities. What are they all independently working towards? Are our goals, needs and wants so different? Would these communities even exist without Montréal?

It strikes me as being exceptionally inefficient, and perhaps the greatest obstacle preventing our much deserved international recognition and further economic and political potential. We are held back by ourselves, each hoping to succeed independently when cooperation is what’s best for all concerned. I look at a map like this and can only ask why? Some of those borders were determined by the extent of investment in various residential projects. The people who live there have almost nothing in common (by design) with the people who built the community in the first place. Almost all bedroom suburbs are like this, so to what do they owe their independence? Market forces? The housing market? The whims of the CMHC?

And while these communities can build fences to force citizens of Montréal to pass through patrolled check points (see Town of Mount Royal), or build barriers to prevent motorists from using a much-needed by-pass (see Town of Montreal West), or exist solely to benefit international oil conglomerates which have abandoned much of the eastern tip of the island to ecological ruin (see the Ville de Montréal-Est), the City of Montréal finds itself having to deal with independent communities who all too often behave like spoiled children, completely lacking in vision and inherently contrarian in disposition. Although I would love to one day be mayor, I can only imagine the difficulties this situation creates. Clearly the best situation would be for a single metropolitan government with a borough and ward system for municipal government, with a large congress of representatives to ensure appropriate representation of the massive new city.

If the entire metro region you see above was a single city, we could review zoning and taxation across the entire region, establish a more egalitarian and proportional taxation system based on new data and subsequently establish new zoning ordinances to re-position certain economic and industrial activity to more advantageous locations while simultaneously increasing urban residential densification and renewal. Collecting taxes from a unified population of four million would allow us to independently lead on capital investment for new infrastructure projects, no more waiting around to secure federal or provincial input. Moreover, we’d be able to expand and increase public transit services, possibly even leading to the development of high-speed rail within the metropolitan region before expanding outwards to other cities. Montréal is the number one tourist destination for Manhattanites – so where’s the bullet train to serve and stimulate that sector of the tourism market? Investing today may secure it for tomorrow.

On a final note, consider as well that a metro city such as the one I’m proposing would be well-positioned to take on additional responsibilities, such as education, healthcare and welfare services. Devolving some of these concerns to a new metro city would allow greater day-to-day operational efficiency, not to mention guarantee a new higher standard of public education and full bilingualism of the population. A single metropolitan school board would have the resources to secure higher rates of pay, better facilities and provide additional after-school and specialist services than any of the current independent boards. Do our children not all deserve the same education, or are we willing to allow inequities to persist based on mother tongue and where one lives? How does that benefit society? This is but one example of how a larger city could have the economic and political force necessary to tackle some very complicated socio-economic problems. We need the same kind of thinking applied to health and social services as well – we need to run our own systems, adapted to our needs, united for our own strength, and no longer subjected to long-distance governing. We need operational sovereignty on a localized, metropolitan level – this is the only way to properly move forward and establish ourselves as a global alpha city.

Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Political commentary, Social commentary, Video

Kim Campbell, the last good Tory

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I’m kinda shocked. This woman was once a Tory PM.

I don’t know much about Kim Campbell. I know Brian Mulroney threw her under a bus (metaphorically speaking) prior to the 1993 federal election, which culminated in the near-total destruction of the Progressive Conservatives, but what I didn’t know is that an apparent Conservative could defend evolution so eloquently while simultaneously providing excellent arguments in favour of respecting facts, science and expert opinion with regards to climate change. The American representative she ‘debates’ with can’t do much more than repeat and re-phrase the same lame-ass soundbites. She is calm, masterfully precise and an effective communicator. She is also a former poll-sci professor at UBC and an admirer of Ralph Nader.

Canada needs leaders like this. What the fuck happened to conservatism in this country? I can’t imagine there would have been much room for any current Tories in the administration of Kim Campbell. Indeed, I think she’d be loathe to associate herself with them.

This country needs to find its elder statesmen (and stateswomen) and get them to help us set our country back on track. Ms. Campbell no longer resides in Canada. I don’t damn her for this, like other fools might, she’s a global citizen and the climate of Southern California is very palatable. She also had the deck stacked against her in a big way, and from what I know was never really given a chance as Prime Minister. I wouldn’t want to stick around either, especially not with people like Stephen Harper running this country. We used to choose between visionaries, academics, intellectuals. Today our choice is between autocracy and people labelled socialists.

What the fuck happened?

Economic commentary, History and Culture, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

New on Sovereign Socialist – State Economic Planning for Conservatives (a primer)

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Oy...

This article was originally published by the Forget the Box news collective.

The ruling Tories have dropped the ball in one domain they repeatedly claim to be almost exclusively their own – supporting the Canadian military.

Let me be more specific. Tories typically talk a good game around election time about how they, and in their minds they alone, support the Canadian Forces. Both Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney began their terms in office promising sweeping reforms, new equipment procurement plans, increases to personnel levels and a general ‘re-investment’ in ‘our men and women in uniform’. Typically, statements of this nature will be bookended with snide commentary about how ‘previous Liberal governments’ have ‘gutted’ the military, leaving Canadians hopelessly defenseless. It’s a good tactic because it works; it plays off of well-established though completely erroneous sentiments and pays off for the Tories during the election cycles. And true to form, though much is promised, almost nothing is provided.

And here’s the kicker; you don’t need to be a military historian to know that when it comes to defending Canada and using military spending to stimulate the economy, no party has a stronger reputation in this respect than the gold old Grits. The dirty little secret of the Conservative Party of Canada is their defense and strategic planning legacy, which has all too often fallen short. The fact that anyone in this great nation still believes the Tories know anything about defense only demonstrates the extent by which Canadian politics is framed by the American discourse, and worse still, American stereotypes.

Historically, Conservative military spending has been very much in-line with Conservative foreign policy, which stresses Canada’s ‘military obligations’ to NATO and the United States (because the Americans apparently need our assistance) and this in turn means we arm ourselves accordingly. Under Liberal governments, the stress is placed on national sovereignty and peacekeeping. Moreover, Conservatives historically tend to buying foreign-produced military hardware, whereas Liberals find ‘Made in Canada’ solutions. And don’t forget our last legitimately Progressive conservative Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, was so consumed with eliminating the fiscal excesses of St-Laurent era ‘big government’ he axed the Avro Arrow and retarded Canada’s aerospace industry permanently thereafter – we still have yet to recover the technical prowess and ingenuity of that firm, more than fifty years after the fact. Diefenbaker’s nuclear-missile replacement was ultimately what would cost him the 1963 federal election, not to mention that he would turn around and later acquire American-made jets in 1961. Similarly today the Harper Administration is procuring 65 highly-experimental and so-far unproven fighters incapable of fully replacing the capabilities of our current fleet of 103 strike-fighters. The Canadian taxpayers are being asked to shell out $30 billion to purchase aircraft that won’t have engines or weapons, and the aircraft won’t even be built here. When Pierre Trudeau signed the order to procure 138 Hornets in 1982, he made sure to acquire the licenses as well, so that the entire fleet was built locally, and further built to a better design than their American counterparts. Our aircraft were so well built they are still outperforming more recent models of the type, and as you can imagine, given that the money stayed in Canada, the indirect economic effects were considerable. And the Tories want you to think this is fiscally irresponsible. Using a search and rescue helicopter or government jet to go on vacation, by their standards, is not.

The Harper Administration has indicated that they consider national sovereignty and northern sovereignty to be synonymous, but aside from playing capture-the-flag with the Danes and Russians, the Tories have done nothing to further defend the Arctic. And defending the Arctic is much more than a routine sovereignty exercise for the Canadian Forces – its about ensuring our territorial waters aren’t used by American, Russian, British, French or Chinese ballistic missile submarines, about securing our resources from irresponsible foreign development and further ensuring that the Arctic ecosystem isn’t further damaged by international shipping and global warming. He said he would procure armed icebreakers – that was five years ago and nothing has happened since. Same thing with the proposed new joint support ships, amphibious assault ships and the upgrades to our existing fleet – lots of talk, little walk. What’s more distressing is that under Stephen Harper’s reign the Canadian Forces have been either selling off or otherwise shedding perfectly good military equipment; the common denominator being that the equipment was procured by ‘previous Liberal governments’. A case in point would be the sad fate of HMCS Huron, one of a class of four guided-missile destroyers with the potential to be used as a platform for a ballistic missile defense system, among other things. Extensively upgraded in the mid-1990s she was still fully serviceable when mothballed in 2000 due to personnel shortages. Instead of keeping the ship in such a static, still usable state, the decision was made by DND officials to tow her out to a Pacific Ocean weapons testing facility and sink her in 2007. Similarly, none of Canada’s four submarines are currently serviceable, and the Harper Administration purposely removed the long-range missile capabilities of these ships. The subs like the destroyers were procured by previous Liberal governments. So to were the reconnaissance vehicles used by the army, the coastal patrol boats used by naval reservists and most of our air defense equipment, all of which seems to have been ‘phased out’ by the Harper Administration. It seems these days that their only success has been to re-affirm our historically British military ties by denigrating our national sovereignty by re-affixing the Royal stamp to two out of three services. A great PR victory, but ultimately as useless as tits on a bull, to use a favoured Western Canadian expression. In sum it has come time for the citizenry to question this apparent Tory dominion on all things defense related. Time and time again they have proven themselves incompetent and fundamentally disinterested in using such large allocations of tax-payer revenue to better developing our high-technology and heavy-manufacturing sectors. It’s time to set the record straight on the Tory defense legacy.

Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal Noire, Montréal Stories, Political commentary, Scenes from the City, Social commentary

Sun News Network, where facts take a back-seat to convenience…

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I guess I’m first to catch the glaring flaw here. Yay for history majors!

To begin, I watched the interview and I agree in principle that men can sometimes get the shit end of the legal stick when it comes to custody issues following a divorce. This is partially a reaction to having a justice system which at one point in the past uniquely served the interests of caucasian heterosexual adult males. Times have changed and we’re better off for it.

But theres a huge problem here.

Ms. Titus’ argument is in part based on the idea that the media doesn’t report the male victims of crimes or injustices of a psycho-sexual nature, that the victims, from a mainstream media perspective, seem to tend towards almost exclusively being women. As for the aggressors, they almost always seem to be men. Ms. Titus, in an effort to bring her point home refers to the four un-named male victims of the Montreal Massacre (aka Polytechnique Shooting) on Dec. 6th 1989. Her credibility then nose-dives because…

It never happened.

There were no men killed at the Polytechnique, save for the lone gunman. The four men she refers to were killed, wait for it:

a) three years later
b) at a different university
c) with a different weapon
d) for a fundamentally different reason
e) from a different person (also a man, now in jail, likely not to be paroled)

Ms. Titus used a tactic which has been well-used by Sun TV, Sun News, CNN, Fox News etc etc etc for years. It’s called ‘conflation’. Since most people can’t remember what happened last week, most people simply smush events together for their own convenience. Ask a history prof how maddening this is.

There’s absolutely no debate when it comes to the victims list from the Polytech Shooting – they were all women killed for being women by a man who claimed feminists had ruined his life. He stated as such in his suicide note. He only shot at women, he only killed women.

I cannot stress this enough. But because the Polytechnique Massacre and Concordia Massacre happened relatively close together, Ms. Titus has decided to apply four senseless male deaths at Concordia University to a crime committed three years earlier in hopes of bolstering her weak position and lack of credible evidence.

*** Author’s Note – October 10th 2011***

I’ve been corresponding with Ms. Titus and she alleges that she had received the incorrect information from students she interviewed. There was a linguistic barrier, as Ms. Titus cannot speak French, and she further alleges that the students led her to believe several men had been killed in the incident, though they could not pinpoint precisely where they had heard this. Ms. Titus insists that she corrected these statements, though I’ve yet to ascertain where such a retraction would have been posted.

That said, I don’t have much too say, I think she’s already done a number on her own credibility by admitting to using less than satisfactory research methods. While I can understand there is a pressure of sorts while appearing on unscripted live television, there is no excuse to use such flawed ‘information’ to form a core component of your argument. Frankly, if more people working in the 24-hr cable news industry made more of an effort to censor themselves and try, sincerely, to only speak the truth, or, to ensure that points are based on demonstrable facts, our society would be considerably less polarized. Instead, such infotainment organizations (like Sun News Network) are driven by spurious scandals and invented controversies. Facts take a back seat because pundits have no interest in finding the truth. This is a distinction between ‘media personality’ and ‘journalist/reporter’ our society must recognize, but unfortunately we are still functionally illiterate when it comes to most media and communications issues. Too many of us still only trust the town crier, and we need to evolve past this. Ms. Titus should have refrained from using this example to build her argument, but ultimately my objection lies not chiefly with her, but rather with Sun News for their selective omission, selective fact-checking, and custom-fit misinformation they traffic in.

But to ensure the record is clear, she does acknowledge the mistake and has apologized for making the assertion, incorrect as it is.

***

It’s not like Fox News North is going to do a god damn thing to help her get her facts straight and this in turn weakens us. We can’t have random, opportunistic people like this being supported by equally opportunistic assholes like Michael Coren, Sun News, Quebecor etc.

This is hardly great stuff, but I suppose I wouldn’t nearly be as disappointed if it weren’t for the fact that men’s rights forums and other commentators are falling-in step behind this, calling it good stuff, a decent argument etc. No one has noticed this crucial fabrication.

As a proud man, I choose to honour my pride by ensuring I know the facts before I open my mouth, and certainly before I go on TV in front of the 20 or 30 people who may or may not be watching Sun News.

Cultural commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal Stories, Political commentary, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

North of Sanity: Dr. Bernans’ Kafka-esque Concordia Encounters

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This picture was named 'Concordia Monsters' by the source. This is not my opinion.

This article was originally published by the Forget the Box news collective.

Dr. David Bernans is an unassuming man with more than a decade’s worth of involvement in student activism and student politics in general. A few years back he wrote a book, North of 9/11, a piece of historical fiction recounting some of his personal experiences dealing with Concordia University security practices in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and all the irrationality, absurdity and insanity that has manifested itself in countless ways over the past decade.

The rallying cry of “9/11 Changed Everything”, typical of the Tea Party penchant for minimalist deepities (thanks to Daniel Dennett for nailing that idea) is unfortunately not so merely a befuddled expression, but also a kind of sick state-of-mind. Perennial fear, and every John Q middle-manager and white-collar schlock finding a newfound purpose in life by making security and anti-terrorism their personal affair. Perhaps we were spared the brunt of the 9/11 tidal wave, but at the very least on campuses here at home and across the nation, a new mood was established, and Concordia would become a Made-in-Canada example-sans-pareil of the new corporate university’s response to student politics and activism in the post-9/11 world. I can imagine another expression, “the gloves are coming off” repeated with renewed vigour in university boardrooms. One of the pillars of our liberal democracy, a ‘free’ and public post-secondary education, renown as bastions of free thought and expression, would become a new ground-zero for illegal, unethical and ultimately state-sponsored political terrorism and suppression. The new corporate university, at arm’s length of the titans of industry, finance and government, would do its part in stamping out internal dissent and anyone, though students in particular, who threatened the corporate image of the institution. All of a sudden Mr. Bernans found himself persona non-grata in the institution he worked so hard to improve. There’s nothing like altruism and the open-support of potentially unpopular causes to get the attention of corporate PR hacks and university lawyers.

I had the chance to speak with the now Dr. Bernans at the book-launch of the new electronic (e-book) version of North of 9/11, originally published in 2006. The reading to a small group was held at Concordia’s cooperative bookstore, an initiative of progressive students that goes back quite a ways. Though I’ve now graduated from the institution, I can remember the Co-op, as its commonly known, was typically the host of anti-frosh activities designed to get the focus back on learning and away from mind-crushing alcohol-fueled hangovers. So I was surprised to see Dr. Bernans’ book reading was part of the regular Concordia Student Union frosh-week roster. Inside, I met up with the new CSU President Lex Gill and then put two-and-two together. I had forgotten about the progressive victory on campus from earlier this year, when the students finally de-throned the university-approved political dynasty they had created in the wake of the Netanyahu Riots of 2002. Thus, the reading made a lot more sense, though its venue – the Co-op – is apparently still considered to be ‘outside’ Concordia territory, and this in turn is a residual effect of the university’s attempt to ‘accommodate student activists’ in the same way ‘free-speech cages’ accommodated dissenters at any political gathering in the United States over the last decade.

North of 9/11 was to be read publically for the first time in 2006. The book does not portray Concordia University in a positive light – and for good reason. The Netanyahu Riot was entirely preventable, and instead of making an example of it to act as a catalyst for better relations and a renewed effort at political dialogue on campus, it was instead ‘utilized’ by the university administration as a casus belli to instigate an unwinnable low-intensity conflict against student activists. Bernans was spied on by goons hired by university administrator Michael di Grappa, and elements of the administration conspired to buy themselves an election and a means to direct control of student activities through the CSU. I would know, I saw it happen in the Spring of 2005, 2006 etc. As Bernans puts it, the administration found ‘ass-kissing CV-padders’ to become the new face of the student body, and then systematically went after every potential threat.

The book documents the expulsions and suspensions of students for illegitimate reasons, the overt corruption of university administrators and security personnel, and the actions of secret committees with odd-sounding names. It’s the story of deep personal bonds forged during these exceptionally hard times, and the fundamental insecurity of the modern corporate university, which seems to be thoroughly incapable of dealing with a politically active student body. Maybe things are going to change this year with the ‘left’ side of Concordia student politics back in the saddle, holding the reigns of power, or whatever power’s left. We’ll have to wait and see about that one.

In the meantime I’d highly recommend checking out the book if you’re not familiar with Concordia history post-9/11. It’s a fascinating subject, and Dr. Bernans has been able to weave a good story together with scenes inspired by his own experiences, into a solid representation of that troublesome time. Unfortunately, as Dr. Bernans was quick to point out, in many ways the student body of today is still dealing with the shadow of 9/11 and the Netanyahu Riots, the implications of which have manifested themselves with heightened campus (in)security, interference in student governance and an aggressive administration. The victory for campus progressives and activists a few months ago was a major upset, but this doubtless means the university administration will take an overtly hostile tone with the students.

Why does it always feel like we’re taking one step forward and two steps back?