[Facts & Figures] Jailed State

This just in: A recent study by The Pew Center found that 1 out of every 100 American adults is behind bars. That's 1 percent of the population - in jail! At this rate, the typical American high school has 7 future inmates walking through its halls - scribbling their names on their desks during math class (based on the national average high school size of 752 students).

Even more interesting is that the same study found that the crime rate has not really changed significantly over the last twenty years - yet back in the 1980s the incarceration rate was much lower. So the conclusion is that sentences have been getting harsher, and low to no risk offenders are being punished for their petty crimes with jail sentences.

This, in my opinion, is crazy. People who commit petty crimes, like stealing bikes and televisions with the intention of selling them to try to make enough money to survive, are not the kind of people we should be putting in prison. They are the people who need a hand of help. We should be giving jobs to them, and we should offer them free education and any other health and social services while they're at it. We should find ways to integrate these people into their communities, find a place for them in society. If they are rehabilitated in this way, if they can identify their social purpose and the way their community relies on them, I doubt they would resort to petty crime. What do you think?

The study gets a bit more detailed: The USA has the highest rate of incarceration in the world - by a long shot. In fact, the United States imprisons far more of its own citizens than other so-called "authoritarian" states - including Russia, China, and the "rogue state" of Iran, a member of the "Axis of Evil". I repeat - the United States imprisons more of its own members of society than countries in the Axis of Evil, which are said to be countries that are not "free". While the USA is at a 0.075% incarceration rate (for its entire populous), Iran is at a rate of 0.022%. I bid you: look at these facts and then try to convince me that the US is not a secret member of the Axis of Evil. I wonder sometimes.

If you are reading this, and you are an American male between the ages of 20 and 34, you better watch out: There is a 3.3% chance that you're reading this from behind bars. But if you're an American male between the ages of 20 and 34 and you have darker skin color, there is an 11% chance that you are reading this from your prison cell. These stats offer yet another indicator of blatant racism that still characterizes American society.

[Good News Bad News] Carbon Tax

Some semi-good news for once: The British Colombia government passed what in this day and age should be seen as very progressive legislation to combat carbon emissions. The main idea of it is this: start taxing carbon emissions - any fuel that pumps carbon into the atmosphere is going to be taxed at a rate of $10 for every tonne of CO2 that it puts into the atmosphere, starting this summer. That rate goes up $5 per year until it reaches $30 per tonne in 4 years. Although the revenue generated for the province is going to be massive and could be used to fund new green technology, research and infrastructure... the BC government is going to give tax cuts to its citizens to help compensate for the extra expense. I'm not sure what I think about this latter part of the deal. It has received criticism for particularly targeting average families instead of the big polluters - a criticism I agree with. However, such critics need to understand that lower income families usually consume less energy and hopefully won't be as hard hit as the typical upper middle class family who wastes tonnes (pun intended) on heating over-sized homes that are miles away from where they work. On the other hand, the whole idea is that the extra expense for using carbon is supposed to make using carbon less affordable, but if you're just putting the money back in people's pockets in the form of income redistribution then it sort of counteracts the purpose of a tax in the first place. Either way, it's a start, and only proves that we need to work on this much more. READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

In other news, Alberta's Tory government is still destroying our planet, despite a very strong letter it received recently (which was signed by a number of oil sands companies!) which asks the government to put a moratorium on granting access to mine for oil in the Fort Mac area. The letter's signatories (amongst whom surprisingly includes Petro Canada, Suncor & Shell Canada - along with the Pembina Institute and Environment Canada) are asking the provincial government to "freeze land lease licences until 2011 in three areas around Fort McMurray that have not yet been developed." Is that too much to ask? Consider how the mere extraction process up there already accounts for more than a third of the province's carbon emissions (and Alberta is already one of the most - if not the most - culpable CO2 emitters)! READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

Finally, in what is likely to become a news story of yet another example of our federal (Conservative) government ignoring good advice, the upcoming federal budget will likely not include a carbon tax, let alone a nationally sanctioned cap and trade system, despite a recent press conference by one of Canada's most renowned environmentalists - David Suzuki. Suzuki suggested that the time is nigh for the federal government to get green legislation down on paper. If only they could pass legislation similar to that in BC, Suzuki says that the Feds could earn up to an extra $100 billion by 2020, which could then be "used to lower personal income tax for Canadians [or]... be put into renewable energy, home energy efficiency improvements, and public transportation." Most likely, however, Suzuki's plea will fall on deaf ears. READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

[Petition] No New Approvals!

Hey folks,

This is a quick one. Please head to http://www.nonewapprovals.ca/ and sign their online petition to stop the Alberta government from approving any more tar sands development licenses. Please, this is just one of many steps. Please also write letters. We need to convince politicians to enact climate regulations! None of this "market mechanism", "cap and trade", "carbon offsets" bullshit. We need laws, and we need to start shutting this shit down. The Tar Sands GigaProject is the largest industrial endeavour in the world! The Syncrude mine near Fort Mac is THE BIGGEST MINE OF ANY KIND IN THE WORLD! The environmental damage is abominable!

Do something now folks, even if it's only adding your name this measily petition.

http://www.nonewapprovals.ca/

[Comment] Ecosocialism

There's a name for those of us who see the destruction of our planet as a byproduct of capitalism, those of us who see the ties between climate change and our global political economy, those of us who are both staunch environmentalists and Marxists: We are Ecosocialists. Ecosocialism sees the coming together of left and green perspectives into a unified ideology. There is an interesting article about the challenges to ecosocialists in the Canadian Dimension. Read it Here. The following is my response to that article:

By far our biggest challenge as ecosocialists is reconciling the interests of labour with those of the environment - particularly within the industrial sector.

Whether it be the tar sands or the automobile industry, we’re talking about tens of thousands of workers, many of whom are members of our most effective unions, who are involved in industries which are killing our planet.

Your answer of insisting “upon comprehensive retraining programs and fully subsidized relocation programs — at full union pay, with no loss of benefits or pensions” is one that I support and often tout myself, though we have to admit to ourselves that this is an incredibly idealistic (and complex) solution!

As an environmentalist (living in Alberta) I want to see the tar sands shut down entirely - forget trying to make oil extraction practices more “green”! As an environmentalist I have trouble condoning any automotive industry no matter how “green” it could become (it’s the very idea of our society being centered around small individual travel pods that I’m opposed to - a societal structure that breeds hyperindividualist, consumerist suburban lifestyles).

Yet as a socialist I feel equally troubled about the repercussions of shutting down these industries which employ thousands of every day Canadians. And yet, if we call for these industries to go, we must have an honest and concrete answer for our brothers and sisters in the workforce.

Where are we going to relocate these workers? Do they even want to relocate? Even if their unions are successful in forcing their employers to adopt “green” production methods, will they be green enough? These are the hardest questions facing the ecosocialist movement in my opinion…

At heart we’re talking about ending the era of the industrial revolution. This is a huge task - we’re talking about a state-society structure that has been consolidating some form of consensus since the advent of the steam engine (both in capitalist countries and in the former Soviet Union). It’s going to take time (perhaps too much time) to confront this issue given the massive amount of change required.

My answer lies in localism. We need to make communities more sustainable and self sufficient. If we can work towards these goals, we’d be setting ourselves up for positive change:
- Each community should strive to produce as much food as it requires.
- Each community should strive to provide enough jobs for its citizens.
- Each community should strive to produce all of the energy it requires, and try to offset the amount of CO2 it produces in the process.

Complement these three daunting goals with a solid public transit infrastructure, including low emissions transportations linking communities (like efficient trains) and clean energy sources, and a REDUCTION IN CONSUMPTION, and voila, things will start looking up.

I know, it’s all talk, but let’s keep talking about this and work out some concrete answers!

[Disadvantage] Alberta's Down & Outs

It boggles my mind that here in Alberta, where it is not unknown to dip down to -40 degrees below zero (Celsius) we can sleep comfortably knowing there are nearly 2000 homeless people struggling to find shelter in the city of Edmonton alone. According to statistics from 2002, some two hundred people are forced to find a bed every night (as the shelters are all full).

A month ago, when it was even colder than that, we got a knock on our door late at night from Phil, who offered to shovel our walkway for anything in return. He and his snow clearing associate were trying to raise the $20 they each needed to afford a warm place to sleep that night. We gave Phil and his partner $40 and some water and wished them a good night (...to do anything less given the circumstances should be considered criminal).

I have come to know Phil a bit more since then. Although Phil is homeless, he is perhaps one of the most entrepreneurial people I've ever met, and has demonstrated himself to be an extremely hard worker, and he reliably shows up at our place every time there is snow to be shoveled (three characteristics you don't often hear within the stereotypical perspective of homeless people). But nevertheless, despite these virtues of his, which our society tends to consider so positively, Phil is constrained by a host of structural forces that make it extremely difficult for him to acquire a home. I'm not going to make assumptions about him or his life other than that it appears that despite his hard work ethic, his entrepreneurial spirit and his reliability as an uncontracted employee, he remains homeless because of political and economic structural forces.

Now let us shift to Mr. Steddy Eddie and his Conservative provincial government who have held power now for 32 years. Could they possibly have something to do with these political and economic structural forces? Could the years of cuts to social spending by Ralph Klein and the war against homeless people that he launched with his drunken escapade have anything to do with it?

I think that would be a safe bet.

And yet we continue to hear government propaganda about this mysterious "Alberta Advantage", like somehow we are ahead of all the other provinces, like we've got access to mountains of (black) gold and, if you could only move here and find an affordable place to stay you could pick the money off the trees yourself.

The truth is that the Alberta advantage is, as usual, concentrated in the hands of the political and economic elite.

Erin wrote an excellent article about this after attending a conference titled "The Alberta [Dis]Advantage". You can take a look at it here.

[Election Scam] Stelmach or Mugabe?

Yet again, the common Albertan citizen is being duped by her deceitful provincial government, and yet again she will do nothing much about it.

After digging up some dirt on the officials hired by Elections Alberta to conduct the upcoming provincial elections, one of the opposition parties announced that one of the Returning Officers was the wife of the head of the nomination committee of a Tory riding association. When I heard this on the radio I was aghast: Nothing speaks of a failing democracy more than an electoral structure that is not free and fair.

Returning Officers are supposed to remain politically impartial. It even says in Alberta legislation that they should not "engage in political activity on behalf of any political party or candidate". Anyone affiliated with any party, let alone the ruling party, should simply not apply for the job nor should they accept the job if offered in the name of conflict of interest. To do otherwise is to make the elections unfair.

So imagine my dismay as I hear today that the Chief Electoral Officer says that 83 Returning Officers have clear connections to the Conservative Party! This includes the aforementioned wife of the riding association as well as a former Conservative candidate, an employee of the Calgary Conservative constituency board, and a woman who brags about her friendships with Tory politicians who are currently in power!

And here's the best part, since the amount of biased Returning Officers that failed to express any sentiment of conflict of interest accounts for over half of the officers for next month's election, the Chief Electoral Officer says that they simply can not afford to fire them as they will be unable to replace all of them in time.

Great. Who is strategizing for this Stelmach government? Is it Mugabe, because this kind of passive "honest mistake" approach to electoral fraud is certainly reminiscent of the world's longest serving dictators?

I can only hope that Albertans see the Tories for what they are: Deceitful, avaricious liars who have spied on their own citizenry, failed to help the province's most vulnerable peoples, and engaged in electoral fraud.

It's time for a change, Alberta.

See the CBC article here.

[Response] Words from the Opposition

After hearing quite a lot of arguments against a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia (which is being secretly negotiated behind closed doors), I wrote a letter to the Liberal Party's Official Opposition Critic for International Trade, Navdeep Singh Bains, who was conducting a survey to see what Canadians had to say about the issue.

Unlike the Conservative parliamentary representative
for my riding, Rahim Jaffer, Navdeep actually responded to me. Further, Mr. Singh Bains had some criticism of the government's secret trade deals which demonstrate Canada's neglect human rights.

I am hoping that Mr. Singh Bain's comments are genuine, and not just the rhetoric of a sore opposition party who is willing to say anything to get elected. For this reason, I am posting the content of his response here... which clearly explains that the Liberal party is against a free trade negotiation with Colombia until the latter government can assure the human rights of all its citizens. Should the upcoming election bring a Liberal government to power, I hope I can take Mr. Singh Bains for his word:

This is what he had to say:

Thank you for your email regarding the proposed free trade deal with Colombia. The Liberal Party shares your concerns.

Mr. Harper has abandoned the long-standing Canadian approach of promoting mutually beneficial trade and economic relations with other countries while advancing the protection of human rights. The proposed Free Trade Agreement with Colombia is being negotiated without regard for concerns about alleged connections between the allies and relatives of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and paramilitary militias in a conflict with leftist insurgents.

On July 16, 2007, Mr. Harper said it would be “ridiculous” to address human rights and social issues prior to establishing trade relations. This position is incompatible with Canada’s humanitarian commitments.

A Liberal government will restore Canada’s long-standing approach to trade negotiations by communicating expectations on human rights in the promotion of trade and economic relations. In addition, the Liberal Party of Canada will continue to advocate for truly free trade while ensuring that the effects of any trade agreement will not work to the detriment of the citizens most in need of its benefits.

Thank you again for sharing your concerns.

Yours truly,

Hon. Navdeep Singh Bains, P.C, M.P.
Critic for International Trade

[Our Impeding Doom] Ideological Profiling

Here's an article my friend forwarded to me about the revamped Homeland Security Act in the United States:
http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16314

Perhaps CNN and Fox haven't "had time" to mention a whole lot about this, given their orgiastic coverage of the Presidential race. You know, news stories about the erosion of democracy just don't seem to garner as much attention as those discussing Clinton's waterworks and Romney's latest makeover.

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was already passed in the House by an overwhelming majority last October. The Senate is currently offering their second "sober" opinion. As the article explains, the legislation brands both radical and reactionary anti-globalization (or "AG") activists as falling into the same "operational environment as al-Qaeda".

I know, they've been calling social justice activists "terrorists" for years, but here is a piece of government legislation that pits everyone from civil rights activists to environmentalists to unionists against some kind of corporate-security-state apparatus. Further, it gives the impression that Seattle-type demonstrations (read manifestations of democracy) are genuine threats to the security of the homeland.

How ironic when I think back to the Quebec City protests, when I marched alongside tens of thousands of peaceful activists: Our voices were drowned by the violent gagging reflex caused by tear gases unleashed with reckless abandon by the very forces that were originally designed to keep us safe. Who were the real terrorists there? Were they the hundreds of riot cops lined in formation with guns and shields and helmets and an entire arsenal of high tech military equipment - or were they the people marching with drums and signs and costumes, singing songs and chanting about the impacts of free trade?

When I read about legislation like that discussed above, I see the legal justification of more tear gas, more water canons, more rubber bullets (soon to be replaced by real bullets).. and for what? To keep us "terrorists" from expressing our concerns about the destructive effects of neoliberal capitalism upon our society's moral fabric, our environment, our jobs and our socioeconomic wellbeing?

Say hello to the very near future, friends, it's called fascism. This is what Polanyi warned us about decades ago, and what we've seen manifested in previous eras when the marriage between capitalist interests and the state feels threatened and can't keep people deluded any longer, and so they have to find some way of justifying the pursuit of unalterable (and unrealistic) economic growth. The fascists always need "homegrown terrorists" to fill their scapegoat role, and since al-Qaeda has been all too foreign since 9-11, they're turning their eye inward - towards the "Latin Menace", towards Muslims, and yep - social justice activists too.... unbelievable.

My only recommendation for today: Download a pirated copy of Sophie Scholl, watch and learn from this 22-year-old hero, this exemplary rose petal from times passed, and start training yourself to defy the machinery of unjust power that will soon be fortress America.