We know the Harper government already gave Corporations $6 billion in tax cuts financed by the $25 billion deficit by the citizenry. So now the question; in that minority government at the Provincial level of Quebec will they get it passed? http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/09/25/montreal-pq-flexible-on-tax-hikes.html?cmp=rss...
Hungry for Climate Leadership is holding a fast and vigil for twelve days on Parliament Hill. Our purpose is to demand that the Canadian government address climate change, the greatest threat to our children. As the Earth warms and extreme weather events become increasingly common, hundreds of thousands perish each year. Our children will feel the deadly effects of the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. In the second half of this century, the vast majority of humanity may perish from the droughts, floods and diseases that climate change is expected to bring. Experts estimate that by 2100 the Earth may only be able to support one billion people. Climate change is humanity’s biggest challenge, yet Canada is not making even the most modest effort to reduce this threat. climatefast.ca...
the Liberals under finance minister Duncan appear to be doing something about the high salaries of provincial CEOs and Upper Management. It may save $12 million in the future; some 200something people given those who are currently in the upper echelons of management are grandfathered and continue to make the dough… http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1259819–dwight-duncan-targets-civil-service-managers-with-pay-freeze-salary-caps-and-bans-bonuses...
This is not an Occupy eulogy By Krystalline Kraus This is not a one year Occupy anniversary piece. This is not a reflective obituary of a short-lived movement as if I were writing about a young life tragically cut short. This is not a eulogy. Nor is this some cliché French statement: “Occupy is dead! Long live Occupy!” It’s complicated… I know it’s a struggle for some people to give up the idea that Occupy would always be around at St. James Park, the Vancouver Art Gallery or Zucotti Park. I know some people believed that when Occupy began, that spirit would stay trapped in time, trapped in that park or in that city, forever; as if we humans could control a movement by sheer will and our fear of nostalgic guilt. Full article: rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2012/09/activist-communique-not-occupy-eulogy...
#S17 #cdnpoli Monday, September 17th, 2012 12:45pm, Confederation Park, OTTAWA 1:05pm, march to Parliament Hill We have had enough of Stephen Harper! Join us on September 17th, the day Parliament reconvenes after summer recess and the passing of the omnibus budget bill AND the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street! Occupiers have been walking from British Columbia since May Day to spark dialogue, raise awareness, and develop an alternative vision to the one presented by Harper’s Conservatives. Since May 1st others have joined the mission, walking all the way from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba to converge on Parliament Hill on the 17th. Let’s join them to tell the “Harper Government” what we think. Stephen Harper is illegitimate! He came into power through election fraud and with only 21% of Canadians’ votes, not to mention through an unfair first-past-the-post voting system. Harper therefore does NOT have a mandate to implement austerity measures, cut corporate taxes, eradicate environmental research and monitoring, continue to exploit Indigenous communities, cut tens of thousands of public sector jobs, attack immigrants, migrant workers, and refugees, approve destructive oil pipelines, cut minority, women’s, and Indigenous programs, buy fighter jets and drones, build mega prisons, and spy on our internet activity. Mr. Harper, we HAVE been paying attention and we are not going to take it any longer. We demand that you resign immediately. We also demand a total transformation of our political system. We call it a democracy but it is nothing of the sort. Voting every few years for corporately sponsored parties is not democracy. Relying on elite individuals to make decisions for us is not democracy. The definition of democracy is rule by the people. This means ordinary people participating in political decision-making on a regular basis, at every level of government. This is what we want: Direct Democracy. With the power in the hands of the people, we would be making very different decisions. Let’s begin a mass conversation about what we, the people, want for this country. After the rally on Parliament Hill we will hold a Peoples’ Parliament to discuss our desired direction for “Canada”. Please join us on September 17th to stop Harper, demand real democracy, and actually create it! We’ll make history There are still a few seats left on the Occupy Toronto bus! We leave on the coach bus at 6:30am and come back around 9pm. Please contact Travis to reserve your seat: [email protected]. There is a $20 deposit, $10 of which you’ll get back upon boarding the bus. Hope to see you!...
“The true problem… is to allow the problems to arise,” wrote R.D. Laing in The Politics of Experience. No less true today than when published in 1967 – or underlined in red the next year. 1968 saw the Prague Spring and My Lai massacre, the Chicago riots and Irish “Troubles.” Students were murdered in Mexico’s Plaza de las Tres Culturas; they brought Paris to a halt when university occupations spread to factories. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Three years earlier, the year of Malcolm X’s murder, King delivered one of his now most-quoted sermons. “[T]he arc of the moral universe is long,” he declared from the steps of the Montgomery, Alabama Capitol, “but it bends toward justice.” New students of social justice still hear stories of ’68 – more than they might about that long arc’s course through their own lifetimes. After all, such stories – activist leaders murdered for their charisma; a world capital nearly taken over by students – seem more fantasy than history, and so don’t implicate Gen X-ers and Millennials, still yet to allow the problems arise in our own time, as more recent events might. After they arise again, as they must, those who ask how will look to 2011 — the Arab Spring, the Indignados, Occupy’s meta-movement. But, with some distance, 2011 might only make sense in the light of the decade that came before it. By this point in 2001, hundreds of thousands of “ant-globalization” protesters – who had captured headlines in 1999 by shutting down the World Trade Organization in Seattle – had laid siege to Free Trade Area of the Americas and G8 meetings, in Quebec City and Genoa respectively. full article: http://www.ryersonfreepress.ca/node/155...
When: Saturday September 15th Where: Bahen Center Room 2185 – University of Toronto (40 St George Street, room 2185 *Just north of College on St George) * The Bahen Centre is a fully accessible space. Website: http://iamrev.wordpress.com/ Synopsis: What does it mean to be a revolutionary today? Can you be a revolutionary without a revolution? What exactly does a revolutionary do? How do we fight racism? How can students win free tuition? Does voting make a difference? Are the police on our side? We all have questions, but together we have answers. ‘I am a revolutionary’ is a one-day conference that aims to discuss these and other questions about being an effective anti-capitalist activist. Organized by the International Socialists, the conference features three workshops that will discuss how to be a revolutionary in your workplace, on your campus, in your neighbourhood, and in the social movements. We will try and address debates about who has the power to change the world, the connection between capitalism and oppression, and the need for revolution. People introducing the topics will draw on historical examples, theory and personal experience to try and discern what it means to be a revolutionary in the here and now. Sessions will take the form of a short introduction on the topic, followed by group discussion. Everyone is welcome to participate and share their experiences. Schedule: 12:30 pm Registration 1:00 pm Who has the power to change the world? Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the majority of the world’s population by a tiny elite. How do they get away with it? This session will explain how class society works and how workers could overthrow it. 2:15 pm Break 2:30 pm How does capitalism cause oppression? Sexism, racism and homophobia are just a few examples of oppression. Where do these ideas come from? This session will explain the roots of oppression and the best ways to fight it. 3:45 pm Break 4:00 pm Why do we need a revolution Economic crisis, climate change and war are all features of capitalism – which is why we need to get rid of it. This session will explain what revolutionaries can do to fight capitalism and why they need to be organized to work for an alternative....
while nickel, diming and charging fees from customers to have a record quarter in the area of over $9 billion in profits let alone the Big 5 while sitting on piles of cash that could be put to better use… http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1249021–royal-bank-reports-highest-quarterly-profit-ever-of-2-2-billion...
Tidal is a crucial self-organized intellectual platform for OWS, which is founded on the principle that there can be no radical thought without radical action–and vice versa. Since the appearance of the first issue in December 2011, Tidal has helped to shape the major directions and conversations of the movement. Distinct from either a journalistic outlet or an academic journal, Tidal is groundbreaking in the way in combines timely, specially commissioned articles by widely recognized scholarly voices such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Judith Butler with a rich variety of theoretical and artistic materials from younger, on-the-ground OWS participants. occupytheory.org/read/ Read issue #3...
Capitalism in Crisis? with David Harvey and Richard Wolff on the Charlie Rose show (July 26, 2012) at: www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12474...
Paul Ryan is a Roman Catholic who follows a Russian Atheist’s ideas. Alissa Rosenbaum aka Ayn Rand is about selfishness which means Romney & Ryan would be looking out for the interests of the 1% while making it cost more for services for every citizen er taxpayer… http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1241907–romney-pick-paul-ryan-is-hard-right-theorist-ayn-rand-in-a-prettier-suit...
Occupy Toronto 13 August 2012 by Michael Holloway New Book takes a hard Look at Public Space Freedoms in the Wake of Occupy With the book’s release the authors are planning a travelling series of happenings, “A parallel exhibition as live participatory experience—Beyond Zuccotti Park: Exhibition as Occupation…” – one or which will undoubtedly be organized in Toronto – and in cities across Canada. Stay tuned here for updates. More on the project in this video form the Kickstarter page (Funded)– http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/303382230/beyond-zuccotti-park via New Village Press: New Book Takes Hard Look at Public Space Freedoms in the Wake of Occupy New York, NY – August 7, 2012 “Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space”, to be released on September 11, 2012, examines the importance of public space as a community forum for citizen expression. Actions against Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have spotlighted US Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly. The book puts issues of democracy and civic engagement into the center of built environment dialogue by addressing where and how people can congregate publicly today, whose voices are heard, and the factors that limit the participation of minorities. It also gives fresh attention to the planning, design, and programming of public space. Beyond Zuccotti Park was conceived in response to the forced clearance of Occupy activities from public plazas throughout the country. Its distinguished editors are advocates of participatory civic process: Ron Shiffman, FAICP, Hon. AIA, Director Emeritus, Pratt Center for Community Development and Professor, Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment; Rick Bell, Executive Director, American Institute of Architects, New York; Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, ACSA Distinguished Professor, School of Architecture, City College of New York, CUNY; Lynne Elizabeth, Director, New Village Press; Anastassia Fisyak, Urban Planning Fellow, Pratt Center for Community Development; and Anusha Venkataraman, Assistant Director, El Puente Green Light District. Beyond Zuccotti Park’s foreword was penned by Michael Kimmelman, chief architecture critic of the New York Times, and Pulitzer Prize finalist. The AIANY Center for Architecture will hold multiple events in celebration of Beyond Zuccotti Park: • Exhibit Opening – September 6 (runs thru 9/22) – Beyond Zuccotti Park: Exhibition as Occupation • Book Launch – September 10 – presenters: Peter Marcuse, professor emeritus of Urban Planning at Columbia University, and Nikki Stern, political, social, and cultural commentator. • Public Workshops – September 16 – Democracy, Equity, and Public Space, celebrating the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street “This book, like Zuccotti [Park] itself, is a site of vigorous conversation, hard thinking, and bold proposals.” —Mike Wallace, coauthor of Pulitzer Prize-winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 New Village Press – August 7, 2012 ___________ “.. A parallel exhibition as live participatory experience—Beyond Zuccotti Park: Exhibition as Occupation—is slated to open at the Center for Architecture on September 6 and will run through September 22, with fresh posters from Occuprint, broadcasts from May Day Radio, workshops from Occupy Town Square, and flashmob performances spilling onto adjacent sidewalks, La Guardia Place, and Washington Square Park. The book and exhibition are a collaborative partnership of the Center for Architecture New York, City College of New York School of Architecture, the Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, and Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. …” Sean Gleason – New Village Press ...
Rising Canadian Unemployment under the stewardship of the Conservatives, some 30,400 jobs were lost; mostly in Quebec under (former federeal) Conservative – Charest who is going through another election campaign… http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1239970–canada-s-unemployment-rate-rises-in-disappointing-july...
American Autumn: an Occudoc Shot on the front lines and meeting spaces of the Occupy movement in NYC, Boston, and Washington, DC from the earliest days through the end of January 2012 American Autumn: an Occudoc is an inside looking out view of the occupy movement. With interviews and insight from key organizers, thinkers and activists including Medea Benjamin, David Degraw, Dr. Margaret Flowers, Lee Camp, Naomi Klein, Nathan Schneider, Ashley Sanders, Vlad Teichberg, Sgt. Shamar Thomas, Dr. Cornel West, Kevin Zeese and many more, writer/ director Dennis Trainor Jr weaves commentary and a fearless style that often puts the viewer right between police and protesters. vimeo.com/44539639...
Occupy Toronto 04 August 2012 by Michael Holloway From ROAR Magazine, August 4, 2012 “O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee!” by Nadim Fetaih They said that it had fizzled out. They said it was over. They said a lot of things. But one thing is clear: here in Montreal, the fight is far from over. “On July 22nd, I went to Montreal to witness what was said to be a dying fight — but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Oh the folly of our times, believing that regrouping is in fact the destruction of a movement. What I saw was a beautiful sight of solidarity for the student cause in Quebec. Men and women, young and old, were out in full force, proving once again that the movement, which hides for but a moment, is only growing stronger below the radar of the media and general population. As a person living in Toronto, all I could do was mire at the beautiful stories that would find itself within my city limits, to reach my ears as I would listen attentively at the admiration of my fellow Canadians. For the first time in a long time, I truly feel proud to be Canadian. A mass movement is growing. …” Read the rest at ROAR Magazine | “O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee!” | by Nadim Fetaih published August 4, 2012 – http://roarmag.org/2012/08/o-canada-we-stand-on-guard-for-thee/ Ontario Students’ Mobilization Coalition (OSMC) is calling for a resumption of Casseroles, August 22, 2012 – Facebook Event | “Call to Action: Solidarity with Quebec, August 22” – https://www.facebook.com/events/366182496785845/ OSMC Tweet embed: Mark your calenders and tell your friends! fb.me/wPcAVbOG — OSMC (@OntarioSMC) July 31, 2012 I posted this overview of the situation in Quebec on my time-line in Facebook on Wednesday 01 August 2012 at 11:17 pm edt: The Liberal Party has called a snap, summer Quebec Provincial Election! The 35 day campaign will result in a polling day of September 4th — days before the end of summer holidays first day back to work after Labour Day. My analysis: On the one hand, a way of keeping voter turn out low; and on the other hand to stop the growth of the mass movement by introducing an issue that could divide it: Whether or not to put all effort into elections – or as CLASSE has said – continue to build the movement towards a “Social Strike” – a general strike of all Quebecois to defeat the neo-liberal agenda – to force the opposition Parti Quebecois to change party policy away from the neo-liberal austerity economics – and towards a progressive policy of infrastructure renewal and expansion – towards a reboot the global economy. Meanwhile tonight, CUTV is live broadcasting Casseroles as at least 10,000 people on the streets of Montreal for the 100th night of Casseroles – much more than anyone expected. Also, a heavy riot gear equipped police presence – and – plenty of the black bloc activists clad in their team’s black garb. (Apparently interlocutors for the police to fight – in order to create spectacle; and violent images so ‘state broadcasters’ can confuse those still fence-sitting – in order to stop the growth of the mass movement which is at this time, the States’ key objective. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/07/31/quebec-election-call.html [edited for clarity]...
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