Sunday, September 25, 2011

 

Where is the NDP? Where are the angry citizens of the area?

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Dear BC Mary.  


You may post this if you wish.  In the early 1950s (whenever the Kemano Project was being built) my father was there as someone experienced in "stores" management.  I believe I was at UBC then.  


He wrote to tell me that the Vancouver papers and the media all arrived to show the wonderful work and the many, many jobs for Canadians.  


Then when the media was all gone, he told me, anyone in any kind of supervisory position was fired ... and replacements were brought in exclusively from the U.S.A.  He was in the kind of non-worker, non-supervisory position to be ignored - and able to tell me what was really going on.

                          In this present situation - where are the unions?  Where is the NDP?  Where are the angry citizens of the area? 

                          The country is going to hell in a hand-basket.  Is it because Canadians don't do anything about it?  

                          Robin Mathews


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Comments:
WHAT can we do?

Where can we do it?

When can we do it?

We know the WHO and the WHY, but we need some coordinated guidance on the others.

eg: Protest and/or sit in on the Enbridge pipeline, the Foreign Fish Farms Fiasco, the Hydro debacle, Site C dam crime, the Fracking fraud, etc. etc.

We need to establish and support a BC people group that will be front and center in getting bodies on the ground in the appropriate places at the appropriate times.

Just tell me WHAT, WHEN and WHERE and I'll be there, pitchfork in hand.
 
Anonymous 7:45,

Best advice comes from Brigette DePape. Looks to me as if your engine is already running, so all ya gotta do is scroll down on this site to make your choices as to what to do.

Best of luck to you. There's a lot depending upon your constructive action.

.
 
Someone on a thread about Cheney coming to Vancouver in the HuffPost, who was posting from the States, suggested that protestors show up waving handcuffs....since no actual citizens' arrest would be possible without actual citizens being arrested etc....could be pretty symbolic, hold the handcuffs up high like a v-sign or fist - or WITH a v-sign.

Come to think of it, that's what's missing at the Keystone protests in DC and Ottawa......

Then, well, a National Smoke-In on Parliament Hill.....would need tens of thousands of people to deter the authorities from shutting it down Gastown Riot-style....Smoke-ins are tolerated in Vancouver. Would they be in Ottawa? By Harper??

The media would mention it for 30 seconds and move on, of course.

The mass sit-in has disappeared; Keystone is dangerous; criminalizing a few hundred thousand people is also dangerous - as is the escalated drug war that will be caused. The Mexican people are calling on that war to end; and where it has to end is in the United States for either the Mexican or Canadian governments to politically be able to do what their populations wants; even if Layton had become PM or Chretien had tried it earlier - the realpolitik is that it would cause major trade and diplomatic problems with the US; and an even more rigid, unyielding border for ordinary people (while resources and finances and services are expedited, of course).

Mass sit-ins - opportunities for mass arrest to further overload the court and prison systems more than they already are....hmmm kind of like a Denial of Service Attack like what Anonymous uses against computer; enough people entering the criminal process at one time could grind the system to a halt, making it unable to respond. Think about it - if 5,000 Vanvouver rioters hit the court system all at once....of 100,000 Ottawa dope protestors (if there were that many dopeheads who had the balls to get to Ottawa and take part...come to think of it, it would have to be "flash mob" without the police knowing and screening incoming traffic, trains etc in advance....

"Prisons - where politicians should go to get punked" came to me too, though that's a bit rank....

Point is, really, is that demonstrations and direct action can stymie a government, but only if enough people can take part, or want to. And that means a core issue.

It's good to see the Keystone protests, like the Wisconsin protests and many unreported in Canada (my the media)....but will the combined desire to rid the country of Harper and people like Campbell and Clark turn into a movement of hundreds of thousands, like the Anti-War Movement did.

It's not about freedom to smoke pot. It's about freedom. And, hopefully, achieving it peacefully. That's why the V-sign would be suitable, with the handcuffs.

Thing is unrest and protest itself is not enough. Our system needs changing, but exactly what are we going to replace it with, and under what mandate and how to get that? This is part of the problem in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution, they're still using the existing legal and constitutional mechanisms and the army especially remains important within that structure...as it does here.

If our system worked, also, the NDP would have been in the forefront of not just calls for change, but also ideas - new ideas, new structures. Creating government that doesn't just listen, but represents, is the goal. Not just another club at the wheel with a half-century old policybook and the usual backroom/insider way of doing things. But a complete destruction of the colonial edifice that is Confederation.

An Anti-Charlottetown...
 
!. Apply the findings of the Ledain Commission

2. Publish and circulate transcrxipts of public input from the Spicer Commission and like materials and encourage publc debate towards a constitutional convention/congress using those materials (genuine public opinion and ideas) as the guideline for proposed reform/constitutional models.

Confederation is broken. And you know what you do with old, run-down buildings full of rats? You tear them down, and build something new.

But you'd better have some plans handy, too......or anybody could win the monkey show that comes with the collapse of states....

We need a national Citizens' Assembly but with a much wider and deeeper mandate than the terms of reference given BC's which were about electoral politics only. It's structural politics that's the real problem.

How to end cronyism, patronage, the pork barrel, the backroom deals, the swarm of lobbyists and, now, government services being operated by/for private money.

I've heard calls for re-nationalization of all that's been stolen from us; but with a Republican Congress (or, God help us all, another Republican president), that will turn us into another Cuba and we will be treated accordingly; and they have the right to send here troops for any reason, at will....what I mean is what we want and whether we can get it or not is a game of calculated risks; very great risks.....

But what the hell...Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, right?
 
bc mary, I would like to private message you; look for me on fb Kimberly A. Henry
 
Anon 9:39,

I don't do Facebook or Twitter.

But you can send me a private e.mail by clicking on my name at the top of the left-hand margin of this page.
 
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