Factories, Not Condos!!!

Recently, I watched a documentary called Poor Us: An Animated History about the history of world poverty, and it got me thinking about what I’ve been wanting to say over the past few years.

In the economic heart of this fair “country” of ours, Toronto has a serious problem: there’s too many condos being built. These ugly buildings made of glass and steel are houses in the form of apartment complexes which, in turn, creates no profit for the owners of the building. This isn’t creating jobs either here, nor anywhere else in Canada.

The only solution to poverty is employment. Not just that, but employment with good wages, enough for a decent living. Maximize profit without it being at the expense of the environment or the rights of the worker or the needs of the state. But condos don’t create jobs. Factories do. Because once a condo’s finished, what happens? Do we just keep building condos for the imaginary broad number of affluent people out there? These condos, constructed entirely out of concrete and glass, won’t even last ten to fifteen years!

Toronto itself should either hire local companies who are in good standing, or form its own construction company, with workers who are able-bodied and of sound mind (even going as far as literally picking them from off the street and paying them in cash), and after vigorous training and organizing unemployed people into public construction workers, give them the task of building at least two factories and one apartment complex near them per year, and that the property of these factories are owned by the City. Not just factories, but also all public buildings within the City, be them libraries, schools, subway stations, hospitals, etc. Now, of course, schools aren’t actually public but run by the churches

The only way this can be achieved is with political willpower and public pressure, two things that Toronto lacks. Petitions, protests, even civil disobedience, should be only the beginning. Local elections are important, because it affects us the most directly. We need to organize, and not just elect active, energetic and dedicated politicians who represent the needs and interests of the people, but also be part of the political process, going as far as running for office. Those who don’t should either be bribed with the promise of re-election if they act (regardless of their conviction), or dump their ass and replace them with someone who would act on the people’s behalf. We need to remove those who are corporate whores out of office, and put in those who want things to work for the benefit of all.

If I were city councillor, I’d push for three things:

1. Focus on building factories that would be owned by the city and rented out to companies who’d be willing to pay the rent of a fair rate per month;
2. Slash TTC fares and passes down to affordable rates (for example: $2 adult, $1.75 senior; $10 day pass; $100 adult metro pass), then impose a requirement that in future, only raising rates of TTC fares and passes must be approved by at least two-thirds of all members of City Council; and finally
3. Impose a luxury sales tax of one cent for every item of at least $500 sold, in exchange for Toronto to be given the right to allow stores here to sell their goods HST-free because, well, we’re the capital of Ontario.

This should be the bare minimum of any local politician’s agenda, and a realistic yet worthy cause to push for. Though more extreme ideas, such as scrapping the HST altogether, and providing free TTC, should be considered. Personally, I’d like to see the TTC fares (for adults as an example) be slashed down to $1, Day Passes to $5, and MetroPasses to $75, but we should be realistic in our goals. While free is tempting, we also got to be mindful of the problem of population control in the city, an issue I’ll get to at another time. In the meanwhile, let’s begin change at home.

Fuck Bethany Horne

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/04/19/raymond-taavel-death-andre-denny_n_1439038.html#s878822&title=Bethany_Horne

I stumbled upon the latest news of the Raymond Taavel murder after clicking on the headline above what seems to be a large, slightly cross-eyed aboriginal man. It was his killer, Andre Denny, who was in court today.

Now, clearly the man was mentally ill, due to the crossed eyes, and reports that he was released with conditions from a Halifax mental health centre (PC for asylum) despite the hospital’s board considering him to be a “significant risk” to public safety.

What had happened, for those who didn’t know, was Taavel, being a good samaritan, attempted to intervene in an altercation between two men outside a gay bar when the two men turned on him and attacked him, beating Taavel to death.

What happened to Taavel was tragic, and my sincere condolences to him.
I also have concerns and condolences to Andre, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic when he was a teenager, because of his condition which ended him up taking an innocent life.
It was completely wrong of the board to allow Andre to depart despite their concerns, and those responsible for the decision should be held accountable and be fired or forced to resign.

That all being said, at the end of the article is a slide show showing the twitter reactions. Among the slides, I found this:

Bethany Horne is one ignorant, stupid bitch.

Really? Homophobic violence, people? The man that killed Taavel was mentally ill. He was schizophrenic. He was released from a mental institution. He was fighting with another guy in front of a gay bar, and they both turned and attacked Taavel when Taavel tried to stop them from fighting. Where’s the other guy gone? Hardly homophobic violence. Taavel wasn’t stalked and murdered like Neo-Nazis (whose beliefs are paranoid delusions that were invented and stoked by a complete psycho) would do to their victims. He was killed by two men, one of whom was drunk, the other being crazy and possibly drunk.

What’s disturbing just as much is that many in the LGBT community are starting to believe in this cunt’s ignorant blathering, and some will go as far as to knowingly exploit and twist out of context what had happened for their own political ends, just as extreme feminists and the anti-gun lobby did with the L’Ecole Polytechnic shootings to push for gun laws while ignoring or suppressing some facts like the police taking forty-five minutes to arrive, or that the shooter, Marc Lepine, was the immigrant son of an abusive, tyrannical immigrant from Algeria that hated women despite marrying one. Abusing your children will turn them into adults with issues, and vulnerable to being driven mad, but that’s another story.

Bethany nonetheless, despite having good intentions, is not helping. She’s spreading her stupid around and it’s going to cause a lot of pain.

My Take on Kony 2012

In the last few days, after seeing what I honestly thought was an obscure documentary about a nasty, brutish warlord named Kony/Kuny, word has rightfully been spread and raised online and in the media about the efforts to capture and bring to justice this man.

I actually like the film, and support the effort of bringing the delusional armed cult leader to justice. I also piss on the criticisms of the film, especially the classic “what about the other brutal warlords” criticism. First of all, to quote Abraham Lincoln, “One war at a time.” There may be other guys out there, but the focus here, right now, is capturing Kony/Kuny. Second of all, it appears that much of the criticism comes from folks who actually don’t want to capture Kony/Kuny. Their excuse? “Oh, it’s complicated,” or “Oh, what about the other guys?” or “Oh, you’re being neo-colonialist!” or “But what about the government that’s trying to capture him? Didn’t they do any bad stuff?” Do you guys even want him captured at all? Or are you championing apathy and inaction? Or just let him run wild and free at the expense of the children and the blood and treasure of other people? Or that you secretly support him?

My only problem with the film is it is meant to make Kony/Kuny famous. Seriously. It’s as if the filmmakers (including talking heads like George Cloony) don’t know what the word infamous or infamy even means, if they ever heard of the words. This poorly worded (if not a typo) goal is causing problems like people throwing rocks during screenings (perhaps those throwing stones know the damn difference between famous and infamous, unlike Invisible Children and the youth groups that support them), and getting people, who don’t understand English that well, to confuse the words famous with infamous. A simple check in the dictionary would do so many wonders!

Commonwealth “Reforms” ~ a blurb

For the royalists, yesterday was a celebration. The Commonwealth had resolved that any first-born child, regardless of sex, can succeed the throne. This certainly was celebratory among the “liberal” royalists, who pose as champions of democracy and equality while ironically supporting an institution that was, is and will remain neither. To make things even more hilarious, they also allowed members of the royal family to marry Catholics. Despite these “changes”, what remains is the same: a monarchy, and that of Britain’s. Don’t get me wrong. Even if we had our own monarchy, I would still oppose it. It also is bizarre to have the matters of the head of state of one nation be determined by other nations, including those with a republican form of government. According to reason, never mind law, something like that would be called an international incident, to meddle in the affairs of another country, like Harper did during the American presidential election in 2008, when he leaked information on what Obama said about NAFTA, costing the Obama a primary. That’s meddling in the business and politics of another country. Why should the matters of the head of state of one country be determined by another? How the hell is that independence?

In Defence of an Elected Canadian Senate

In Defence of an Elected Canadian Senate

or

Answering the Senatorial Abolitionist

Having been incensed by a piece of trash decrying the usefulness and necessity of an elected senate, I had to write this. While I despise the fact that the senate is unelected, unequal and hardly of any use, I equally despise the concept of abolishing it altogether. The inflammatory piece, called No Rational Case For An Elected Senate, was penned by Gerald Caplan, the author of the soon-to-be-released book The Betrayal Of Africa. He writes in support of abolishing what is essentially a necessity to any federated state ~ the senate. What he does is tremendous damage in appealing to the masses’ impulses and not their intellect, proving to us that not all academics are that bright or deserving of their credentials. Abolishing the Senate would give far more power to the office of Prime Minister than it already has and would allow further division of the country. Caplan’s rag references Tunisia, Egypt and Afghanistan — all countries that have no need for a senate because they are unitary states, meaning they are singular entities without any autonomous subdivisions, which differs from a federation. Equal representation is necessary for any federation, that while equal portions of the entire population must be represented, every province must also be given equal representation, thus a House of Commons and a Senate. Even his grasp of the concept is wrong, which makes one wonder whether or not he really deserved (or earned) his MA in Canadian history and Ph.D. in African history. He’s a history major, not a lawyer, political philosopher or political scientist (then again, neither is this author). Let us examine paragraph after paragraph Caplan’s attempt to comment on a system hardly anyone bothers to understand, appealing to people’s base instincts to not work or spend money on the right things. He even closes his piece with one of the most common excuses for political laziness and defeatist apathy, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

“I suppose I could begin by denouncing the travesty that more seats will be added to the House of Commons to reflect changing population patterns in Canada. I could argue that need, logic and common sense all dictate doing exactly the opposite — leaving the total number of members the same but decreasing seats where population warrants. Canada needs more members of Parliament like I need more cavities.”

Let’s begin by somewhat agreeing to the idea that changes in the total number of seats to reflect the changes in population growth is somewhat of a bad idea. More Canadians must be represented and there should be more seats to provide greater representation to all Canadians, but adding or subtracting seats where population warrants within a set number of seats is just as good of an idea. However, that should be reflected only in the HOC.

“But there’s really no point in beating this forlorn drum. There’s as much chance of stopping the increases from going ahead as there is in expecting integrity from Tony Clement or a strong, democratic, central government in Afghanistan. Some things are simply not on. So let’s get to what should be possible — putting the kibosh on the absurd notion of reforming the Senate by electing it.”

An elected senate is not absurd but essential to a democratic country, to an open society (or, in Canada’s case, “democratic” and “open”) to make the Senate more accessible to the people, and allows people greater say in who should represent their province in the Senate. But since most leftists and all royalists alike agree that elections are a waste of time and money, why then have any elections at all for any position and allow people say in who should be representing them? Let heredity or cronyism take place, as dictatorships do.

“That we have no need for a second house of Parliament of any kind is the first proposition here; in today’s world, no persuasive case for such a chamber, elected or appointed, can be made. There is no role for it that can’t be better played by others, whether the House of Commons or the provinces. If Canada was being created today, no one would think it needed two chambers, just as no Egyptian or Tunisian rebel has pleaded for a bicameral parliament.”

What a load of garbage. The reason that a second house in Parliament is needed is to provide equal representation of each province, regardless of population. Granted today’s senate is unelected, and certain provinces are given more representatives than others, and it hardly does anything. Yet having a senate that has equal representation per province would start things on the right track. We are a federation. The reason Egypt and Tunisia has a unicameral parliament is because they are unitary states, and in any case that could change considering the recent revolutions Caplan seems to not have noticed. Yet.

“What makes most sense in terms of both democratic theory and Canada’s needs is to get rid of the damn place entirely before it scuppers more useful legislation. But abolition requires a constitutional amendment, which is also as likely as getting Tony Clement to show integrity. Still, the way forward is remarkably simple: Impose stringent term limits on sitting senators — I’m thinking Labour Day at the latest — and then just stop appointing new members. Before you could curse Mike Duffy, there’d be no more senators in the Senate.”

Here a historian is talking about democratic theory and reason. Because it is unelected, unequal, and unaccountable like monarchy and dictatorship, it has rarely turned down legislation, yet despite refusals being rare, legislation that could damage the country has been turned down since the current system of government gives a Prime Minister only so much power, with an unstable House of Commons and a rubber-stamping useless puppet that happens to be a monarch, a subject Caplan doesn’t seem to bother with in the slightest. In plain language, the Senate is there to not just provide a sober reconsideration but to counter the abuses of the HOC and vice versa. Sadly, hardly anyone has noticed these moments because they’ve been blinded by the populist rhetoric of abolitionists. As for these weak proposals, they demonstrate Caplan’s lack of understanding of the institution.

“This of course will not happen, since the Prime Minister seems determined to leave behind an elected Red Chamber. Why he’s obsessed with this notion is, like so many of the other dogmas in his catechism — prisons good, Israel good, corporate taxes bad, long-gun registry and long-form census awful, coalitions evil — quite obscure. He asserts his articles of faith but never troubles to explain the reasons behind them. Arguably, there are none; dogmas disdain reason.”

There is nothing wrong with an elected senate, since it gives people a say in who should represent their respective province, and that if a senator wanted to stay in office, they’ll have to appease the people and keep their promises under pain of losing the next election. This, alas, is not noticed by the many who have been blinded by abolitionist rhetoric, and has even forced those on the left who are in favour of an elected, equal and effective senate (one of the only good ideas that Harper has expressed until recently in his bill) to shut up or pretend to join the crowd out of fear of being branded a right-winger and treated like a pariah.

“There is, in fact, no rational case to be made for an elected Canadian Senate in terms of democratic practice. But I want to make a more practical if equally damning objection. Consider the simple logistics of electing a senator. Each senator is said to represent or be associated with a region, each region more or less being a province. So when a Senate seats comes open, a senatorial candidate would have to present herself to the entire province and be elected by the entire province.”

On the contrary, the senates in different countries usually have more than one senator for each state or province represented, which promotes equality and differs from the lower house that’s supposed to represent equal portions of the population. In the United States, for example, each state is represented by two senators, regardless of population. In Australia, each state is represented by six senators. Yeah, this is what happens when you have a history major attempting to offer political solutions. They’re as credible as relying on the rhetoric of a philosopher to determine whether or not the Twin Towers on September 11th collapsed because of controlled demolition, or a neurosurgeon to conduct a heart transplant.

“Anyone who’s ever worked in an election campaign will immediately see the staggering organizational implications. In our parliamentary system, like Britain’s and unlike that of the United States, no politician ever directly faces an entire province or region. No individual, whether provincially or federally, runs anything more than a riding campaign. Provincial and federal leaders each run in their own ridings but each heads a larger provincial or national campaign. The main parties have machinery that makes these campaigns possible. More to the point, the parties alone have such machinery.”

Yes, our system is much like Britain’s, and nothing Canadian or workable in the least since we in reality, contrary to Caplan’s perception, are a British colonial outpost that pretends to be a country while preserving a foreign, unelected, elitist absentee dictator as our head of state. As for the so-called staggering organizational implications, look at what the party leaders do. They campaign for their party beyond their riding.

“No individual in Canada has anything remotely like it. In fact no individual, unless she were a member of a party and had that party’s support for her senatorial campaign in, say, Alberta, or New Brunswick, has any campaign machinery of any kind beyond her own riding. So how do you run a region-wide campaign? Where do you get the money, the advisers, the organizers, the volunteers, the polling, the offices, the computers, the signs, the bus and plane, the ads, the war room, the strategists? What are Stephen Harper’s answers to these questions? Maybe his cat Stanley knows, but we the people do not.”

There are many ways his questions can be answered that, unfortunately, Canadians are not bright enough to notice, so what better way than to advertise yourself and your policies and beliefs to get elected to change or preserve things. And don’t party leaders campaign for Prime Minister across the country, even though that would have absolutely no effect on the people in their riding?

“Seems to me there are only two possibilities. Certainly no ordinary citizen pining to be a senator would have the slightest hope of putting together a province-wide campaign of any serious kind. So the first, and most obvious, possibility is also the most likely. The parties will choose their own candidates and organize a full-blown, single-province election campaign each time a Senate seat has to be filled. How can that help any aspect of Canada’s governance? How much will each run cost? Who pays? Do Canadians want an endless series of mini-me election campaigns for the rest of eternity? In this year’s dramatic, exciting national election, only 61 per cent of Canadians took the trouble to vote. Who’s going to care, or should care, about a campaign to elect a single Senator from one of the parties? The winner would be seen as yet another party functionary elected by a handful of party activists with little recognition and less legitimacy.”

This is elitist, to tell the ordinary person that they can’t achieve the impossible, despite history debunking such a myth time and time again. Get creative. Democracy is based on the rule of the people, or popular involvement in the government of their country.

“The only other remotely plausible possibility, so far as I can see, is that some high-profile figure, temporarily off her rocker, might jump in. We’ve just seen this phenomenon in the United States, when the egregious Donald Trump threatened to run for the presidency based on racist innuendo about Barack Obama — only in America, thank heavens. Could Canada throw up (you should pardon the expression) a Donald? There’s Conrad Black (what a perfect campaign slogan: ‘Who knows more about institutions than I do?’) Rick Mercer? Senator Romeo Dallaire? Céline Dion (yes!!!)? Uncle Albert? Justin Bieber? Hazel McCallion? The Canucks? (Okay, not the Canucks.)”

For a man who talks a lot about reason and common sense (out of his ass), he, the holder of an MA and a Ph.D., is appealing to people’s inclination for celebrity and not to the necessity for education or intelligence. This is what happens when education is left to the devices of the provinces, to create and present a distorted history of the country for their own ends. To him, fame is more important than policy. He especially is a whore of celebrity culture since he added a “yes!!!” to Celine Dion as his personal endorsement, despite the fact almost all creators of pop culture are never intelligent. Look at the garbage they produce. He also does this to mock what should be one essential part of the legislature of a federated country.

“What a useless bore the entire discussion is. Here’s what I just don’t get. Stephen Harper has so many really awful things he’s dying to do to this country, as one of his ministers forthrightly put it this week. Why clutter the agenda with a complete waste of time like an elected Senate?”

What a useless bore his article was. Repeating the same utterly ignorant drivel that appeals to instincts rather than challenge minds of the people who know nothing about government or how it works or why it works. Plus how is making Parliament more democratic with an elected senate such an aweful thing? Is Caplan communist, since communists (and royalists and anarchists) despise democracy, which is a fundamental and ancient tool for the people to control their country’s rulers and to keep them in check? What is a complete waste of time are other matters no one cares about, such as child poverty, gay rights or the environment. They are a waste of time no one and no government takes seriously. How does it feel for a believer in democracy and in a republican form of government, especially those on the left who are forced to keep quiet thanks to the momentary popularity of an idea, however bad it may be, to have their cause marginalized and belittled while other causes get the attention they don’t deserve (or, in the matters of child poverty, gay rights and the environment, don’t get the attention they deserve) and are completely unrelated to the concept of democracy?

If he’s going to babble about democracy at all, he should start going after what is imminently and essentially the prime enemy of democracy and democratic ideas: the monarchy. He should be aware of the horrors of Empire that afflicted Africa wherever colonies sprouted, especially British colonies and client-states, considering that he’s got a Ph.D. in African history.

Indeed Harper is corrupt. Indeed Harper has abused his power. And despite this author’s defence of an elected senate, no way is this same author going to defend Harper, or the recent mockery of democracy legislation that Harper introduced, which left the provinces to decide on whether or not senators should be elected, and allowed the Queen (or, in the bill’s wording, the Governor General) to continue appointing Senators, which is never the case in practice since every candidate nominated by the Prime Minister has always been appointed by the Queen, and that never in the history of this country has anyone other than the Prime Minister’s choice been appointed to any civil office. That being said, this does not excuse the abolition of the senate, nor defends Harper’s proposal as anything remotely democratic.