From "The Tyee"
Opinion
Paul Hawken Saw Wave of Change Coming: Now What?
Eco-entrepreneur wrote book portending Tahrir Square and Occupiers. He'll speak on new opportunities in Vancouver Tuesday. Here's a taste.
By David Beers, 11 Nov 2011, TheTyee.ca
Author Paul Hawken
Paul Hawken: How can we British Columbians do more with our 'blessings'?
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Right about now, as economies and nature unravel, spawning all kinds of democratic uprisings, you'd probably like to spend time with a brilliant person who's been making hopeful sense of all this for not just weeks, but decades.
That person would be Paul Hawken. You can hear his ideas on how best to connect with the great wave of global change this Tuesday evening in Vancouver.
Hawken has worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., established several highly successful green enterprises as well as the Natural Capital Institute think tank, and written groundbreaking bestsellers including The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability and Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution. Four years ago he published Blessed Unrest, an investigation into the myriad groups around the planet advocating for justice and the environment, an amorphous "largest movement in the world" that Hawken concluded was unstoppable. Think back to when Hawken began researching his book, around the time of Sept. 11, 2001. That was not the most obvious moment to go looking for, and find, the spirit of Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street, but Hawken nailed it.
It may be because Hawken, who lives in Sausalito, California and made his first serious money by building a quality tool company, is a practical thinker, yet no one ever accused him of thinking too small.
On Tuesday evening Hawken will draw on examples from around the world to discuss ways to leverage our wisdom, our money and our humanity for a better world. Then a panel of local social entrepreneurs will join Hawken in a discussion of projects and initiatives that are transforming our local community and society. Audience members will also be given an opportunity to join in the conversation. To learn more about the event, click here.
Sponsored by Vancity, this gathering is intended to inform and invigorate anyone working for a better world in business, not for profits, government or other settings. The venue is the Orpheum Theatre; start time is 7:00 p.m. Tickets, priced on a sliding scale, can be reserved here.
FREE! Get The Tyee delivered direct to your inbox, daily or weekly.
In anticipation of Tuesday evening, The Tyee emailed Paul Hawken some questions and here's what he sent back:
Do you think Blessed Unrest predicted the Occupy Movement? Do the Occupiers represent a new phase of what you were cataloguing in your book?
"Blessed Unrest was published in 2007 but I had written about this phenomenon before then. In 2001 I wrote an essay for a book entitled 'Imagine: What America Could be in the 21st Century.' In it I described the movement from which Occupy emerges. Although people have quoted from Blessed Unrest and other essays with the view to my having predicted Occupy, I would say no. I try not to predict. I wrote about something that was evident more than 10 years ago. The difference is that the movement is now visible to many. The Occupiers represent a new manifestation of what has been present and growing all along. This is a bit long but this is what I wrote 10 years ago.
"In the United States, more than 30,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foundations, and citizens' groups are addressing the issue of social and ecological sustainability in the most complete sense of the word. Worldwide, this number exceeds 100,000. Together they address a broad array of issues, including environmental justice, ecological literacy, public policy, conservation, women's rights and health, population, renewable energy, corporate reform, labour rights, climate change, trade rules, ethical investing, ecological tax reform, water, and much more. These groups follow Gandhi's imperatives: some resist, while others create new structures, patterns, and means. The groups tend to be local, marginal, poorly funded, and overworked. It is hard for most groups not to feel palpable anxiety -- that they could perish in a twinkling. At the same time, a deeper pattern is emerging that is extraordinary.
"If you ask each of these groups for their principles, frameworks, conventions, models, or declarations, you will find they do not conflict. This has never happened before in history. In the past, movements that became powerful started with a unified or centralized set of ideas (Marxism, Christianity, Freud) and disseminated them, creating power struggles over time as the core mental model or dogma was changed, diluted, or revised. The sustainability movement did not start this way. It does not agree on everything, nor should it ever, but remarkably it shares a basic set of fundamental understandings about the earth, how it functions, and the necessity of fairness and equity for all people in partaking of the earth's life-giving systems.
"These groups believe that self-sufficiency is a human right; they imagine a future where the means to kill people is not a business but a crime, where families do not starve, where fathers can work, where children are never sold, where women cannot be impoverished because they choose to be mothers. They believe that water and air belong to us all, not to the rich. They believe seeds and life itself cannot be owned or patented by corporations. They believe that nature is the basis of true prosperity and must be honored. This shared understanding is arising spontaneously, from different economic sectors, cultures, regions and cohorts. And it is growing and spreading, with no exception, throughout this country and worldwide. No one started this worldview, no one is in charge of it, and no orthodoxy is restraining it. It is the fastest and most powerful movement in the world today, unrecognizable to the American media because it is not centralized, based on power, or led by white, male, charismatic vertebrates. As external conditions continue to change and worsen socially, environmentally, and politically, organizations working toward sustainability increase, deepen, and multiply.
"Our children, who will look back 50 years from now and wonder at what these groups accomplished, are avidly reading Harry Potter books. What they know from these books is that there are too many Muggles in the world. As Bill McKibben wrote in his articles on the protests in Seattle, one kept seeing the sticker 'Wake up Muggles.' If Muggles stand for a hyper-rational world of no magic, economic analysis, and hyper-growth at all costs, then what we are beginning to see is the reemergence of a celebratory resistance to what Caroline Casey calls the 'Reality Police,' the angry columnists, the vacant politicians, the blind economists, the obsessed CEO, and pathological financiers, the people who cannot see that what is emerging now is the possibility of being fully human."
Blessed Unrest emphasized the atomized and therefore difficult to define nature of the world's myriad groups working for social justice and environmental preservation. Is there a danger that we place too much emphasis on the Occupy movement to stand in for all this unruly effort all over the world?
"When you ask do we place too much emphasis on Occupy, I guess you would have to define who we is because we generally stands for the media, not people, and how the media reports Occupy has been consistently inaccurate and skewed and will no doubt continue. It will be years before we understand the meaning and impact of the Occupy movement. It may fall apart, it may cohere, it may morph, or it may grow and overthrow by its presence the corrupt and collusive machinations of corporations and legislatures in the U.S. and throughout the world.
"What the Occupy movement cannot do is prevent the bankruptcy of the U.S., Japan, China and much of Europe, which is where we are but have so far deferred by financial contortions. This is not being brought about by the peasants or even the middle class, but by oligarchies everywhere. We have created the delusion of economic growth and well being by creating unpayable debts to the future, whether they are financial debts, the debt of resource depletion, or the debt of structural poverty, and the Occupy movement is holding up a mirror to a political/financial system that is manifestly unfair and which is causing incalculable damage to the world, whether it is liar loans or the Athabasca Tar Sands."
Scan the world and tell us if you think any world leaders really get the power of this "blessed unrest" and have made an intelligent alliance with it.
"I think Bill Clinton gets it. He is not in office, but he is as much of a world leader now as he ever was as president, only now he is using civil society as his vehicle. But past that, I would say no. There is no current elected leader that understands the power of civil society. "
So you don't think Obama gets it? Has he betrayed its energy that helped him get elected?
"Obama is a lawyer. Lawyers frame and think in linear and logical ways. Obama is approaching a non-linear complex system, i.e. the world economic system, as a problem of logic advised by people who both created and benefited from the financial morass we are in today. Since he is dealing with a problem that does not have a linear solution, he is a bit hapless."
What if any lesson does Obama's experience offer other world leaders at this moment?
"I cannot think of anything Obama offers with respect to his experience. He is running the largest empire in history with no experience in running anything at all. He is backed by a default reserve currency that provides him and the Federal Reserve great latitude and leverage to paper over our problems at home. If he did not have this legacy currency, we would be facing a situation similar to Italy and Greece, and soon France. In his defence, he did not cause or create it, and no one has had to deal with what he is facing ever before."
PAUL HAWKEN EVENT, NOV. 15
Leveraging our wisdom, money and humanity for a better world.
Where: Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver.
When: Nov. 15, 7:00-9:30 p.m.
Tickets: Sliding scale starting at $5, suggested price $20.
Find out more here.
Reserve tickets here.
What do you say to people who have become disillusioned with electoral politics to the point that they say "all politicians are alike"?
"I don't think it is helpful to see politicians as the bête noir of society. Politicians are people just like everyone else and I find many to be honorable and dedicated. That being said, I think we are looking for love in all the wrong places when we turn to national governments, because the role of governments is to slow things down, make commerce and citizens heedful of core values and the rule of law in the case of Canada and the U.S. Thus, they are not equipped to deal with the scale and rapidity of change we are witnessing, changes which will become ever more pronounced.
"Only citizen-based organizations and commerce can respond to change in a time-frame commensurate with the issues involved. Electoral politics, because it is hog-tied by problems it is ill equipped to solve, is devolving just as Plato predicted in The Republic, wherein the lowest common denominator becomes the arbiter of electoral politics. When that happens, we should not be surprised that nuance and civility have disappeared, and that many politicians do not have the intellectual capital to parse the issues or speak in a reasonable, non-polemical manner."
As the founder of the Natural Capital Institute and several companies that adhere to sustainable principles, please talk a bit about how business can be a positive source for social change.
"Business makes the biggest contribution by choosing what it does, and how it does it. Much of what we make and sell is absurd, unhealthy, useless, or toxic. We have to ask ourselves what is actually helpful at this time in history, what is needed, not just what people are addicted to. Marketing sugary, fatty junk food that creates the basis for obesity and type 2 diabetes is not helpful. Farming organically and banking carbon in the soil is extraordinarily helpful. Both are food businesses. The first type of business can never be sustainable whereas the second is inherently sustainable. Businesses that make things we need but do so in a destructive or uninformed way can become helpful by completely redoing how they manufacture and distribute their product, much as what happened with Ray Anderson and the Interface carpet company."
What qualities do you see in Vancouver and its region that make it a particularly fertile place for the kind of shift you have written about?
"I am not familiar enough with Vancouver to speak with any certitude on this. What I notice are the following qualities that greatly support the transformation the world is undergoing: functional governance systems that are not afraid of taxes or setting high standards; a fairly paid workforce; a diverse community; relative income equality; great schools; and a culture of innovation.
"What British Columbia has to be aware of is that it is an extraordinarily blessed place on the planet, and in some ways, it is removed from the travails and exigencies that most people in the world face on a daily basis. It could be said that true discovery and innovation lies in the shadows, that it rests within constraint rather than unbounded prosperity.
"Having just returned from Australia, there is a similarity to Canada in that both countries are resource rich in a world of diminishing resources. Both countries' economic futures are guaranteed for decades to come, and the question I would ask is whether or not these countries will use their blessings to lead the world."
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Choice and Democracy
How Large Organizations Suck You Away from Democracy
On this day, when we celebrate our freedoms, paid for with the lives of so many, the coercion against democracy, the ever-increasing erosion of democracy and the free enterprise system continues, and you are part of it. You are, I fact choosing it. And while you may think that by choosing it you are exercising a democratic right, perhaps it is different than that. There is no doubt that democracy *means* free enterprise, right? If you live in a democracy, we have free enterprise. This is normal. We take it for granted; we think it’s “just there”. We also think that our right to choose is just there. But is it?
We like to think that as adults we are mature in thinking, think deeply about things, and try to do the right thing. Or things. So how can your choice be taken away? How can you be actually “choosing’ to leave your democratic/free enterprise system while at the same time proclaiming the symbolism of Remembrance Day (being freedom and democracy), and loudly (sometimes) proclaiming that our system is better than others because we are “free”? Just how free are you, when it comes to making decisions about money, in our democratic/free enterprise system? Our free enterprise system, by the way, is based on the freedom to start and to have a business, and our democracy allows for anyone to do that (based on fair competition).
Still with me? We all know the above. So do our governments, at all levels (federal, provincial, municipal and town). Big business knows it. Advertisers know it. Other types of government know it (socialist, communist, etc.). And a variety of agencies, too. Whether it’s a political or corporate entity, they all use research (polls, psychology, studies) to determine how to achieve their goals, wishes and aims. They know us. They know the consumer. In governance, they know, (or think they know), and how to govern us. We wouldn’t have the need for political science, anthropologists, psychologists or sociologists otherwise. (lol). We, or rather they, need to understand humans and how to use that understanding.
So how is it that you can’t refuse a good sales pitch? (even tho’ you might have some inner qualms about it?).How come you can’t (or is it won’t) refuse a low low price on something, even tho’ your innards are thinking there might be something wrong with it?
We aren’t the poorest country, province or county in the world. We are one of the richest nations. Most of us, in Digby County, are not cooking our meals over open fires on the street as our only way of cooking or obtaining heat. We “choose” to BBQ in the summer. We “choose” to sit around a camp fire and toast marshmallow or warm our hands. And this is one of my points: “It’s the POOR who don’t have choices, right? They “have to” choose the lowest cost of doing anything, the lowest price from food to transportation. They’re the ones whose choices are severely limited.
If you are above the poverty line, do you have other choices? Can you make other choices than what’s the cheapest? Can you make another choice other than what’s the bottom line? Can you make another choice if your innards are not sure that it’s the right thing to do?
Why is it that there is a “wealthy” (not below the poverty line) person at the food bank? A neighbour accepting $500. a month not to tell a next door neighbour that a huge, destructive development will be taking place right next to him? An area where the standard of living is 10, 000 times over Biafra’s taking “donations” to the area’s clubs, societies, receipts of ball caps and T Shirts, for an activity that may cause others to lose their homes or may hurt the wildlife or even remove the landscape and affect quality of life? Don’t these same people or entities already enjoy quality of life? And it is usually the bigger organization, political structures, or bigger businesses that are “bribing” you to do what your innards are telling you isn’t right.
They are removing your choice by offering you something. They know that you, in your income bracket, which is not the lowest, will not refuse a “donations”, a “gift”, or a lower price.
Hence, we get the millionaires scrimping on things, billionaires low-paying their employees, the wealthy outfitting their enterprises from second-hand stores. Others using services really just meant for the poor. We are not that poor, you know. But it is not just the “wealthy”. Those who can well afford it, or are not below the poverty level are sucked way past principles, and incidentally, out of their choice, by a buck-or two.
You can get sucked into what current demonstrators would call corporate greed, by accepting a donation to your favourite cause. You don’t want to admit that it means you’ve been sucked into “theirs*. For example, accepting a “gift”, or donation from a fast food joint for placing their logo on the playground. You’ve also, now by popular opinion, contributed to the highest rates of obesity, heart disease and illness this society has had EVER. Not only your kids, but your friends’ kids. Some people were “sold” by political and corporate agencies to put wind turbines in a sensitive ecological and pristine nature areas, clear cutting the forest and hillsides to do it, removing the vegetation that controls run-off, and provides the oxygen that humans need to breathe; taking way the homes and habitats of may wild creatures, putting spinning blades in the air on the migratory bird flyway of many visiting and rare bird species, and obliterating the landscape, which provides quality of life to humans and other species, and flies in the face of a now global phrase, altho’ you may not have heard it before: “landscape conservation”, which is now recognized as needed, and valuable. If you think well we’re only one small area, then you are conveniently missing the point-the bigger picture. The world cannot sustain these on-going, increasing, and cumulative onslaughts.
Moving on: doesn’t the world seem to be going towards bigger and bigger “entities”? And do you know why you don’t plant a lawn full of Kentucky bluegrass only? Hopefully you’ll see the connection soon. You don’t plant a lawn full of one species or one variety of grass only. Why? Because if the one species (or monoculture, which you’ve created) of grass get a disease, your whole lawn is destroyed.
Yet farm operations are huge operations now. Some now are controlled by larger corporations such as Monsanto. Even seeds now are controlled by about 3 huge entities. I’m not saying that they did this, but if farmers were sucked into an offer by some of these big “daddies”, then their “no choice” choice as the larger entities counted on, has led to the farmers having no choice at all, from seeds to crop, and us having no choice about what we eat-genetically modified plants, seeds and all. Even the seeds are owned by only a very small number of companies. Maybe it’s true, but it’s counted on, that you will have no choice but to accept the offer.
The bigger entities’ (government or big enterprises) premise is that the general population will always take an offer of money or a lower price for something. And then you’re in *their* pocket, hooked into their agenda of corporate greed, or for the purpose of creating a monopoly-for control and money, for power and ego. But remember the lawn?
What ever happened, and what’s happening to the little guy? It’s the little guys who will prevent the “monoculture” or lawn disaster. Are you starting to understand what I’m saying?
Back to politics: free enterprise, which goes along with our democratic system, is base on any number of people who want to start a business, being free to do so, and trying to exist in fair competition with other (small) businesses, and according to all that market mumbo jumbo. Far right socialism or communism is the opposite .Everything is owned and run by the State (or province?). It tries to gobble everything unto itself, eliminating small business, and much of what we call “free will”, our freedoms and our choices. The “offer” to you, to make you accept this, is a lower price for things or some things. “The STATE” or the province, with your money, of course, will subsidize this .Or that. You become part of the State and are controlled by it, just like, for example the big cold land in the north of Europe. Which we, in our democracies hated. We fought wars against governments like that one. Millions of people over the world died for democracy and our freedoms. On this November the11th, 2011, how would you say we are doing?
You may not this a fair parallel, but on Wednesday night, there was a meeting, in which the President of particular operation proudly proclaimed that “WE (his type of operation) have taken over most of Nova Scotia. There’s only one slice left”.
People, caught up in the glossy performance production of promo, in which no discussion was allowed except for 2 questions), almost clapped for him. Imagine.
His operation is subsidized. A lower price. If you don’t “get” this, and the bigger picture, I’m almost sorry you’ve read this far. It’s been a long read, I know.
Yesterday, someone whom I can’t find the right descriptor for….an emissary (political) or agent of his), came to me, professing of potential “offers’ soon to come. The implication was “if only I would agree…”.
What do you think folks? What should I do? What should *you* do?
As always, my opinion (without predudice), the Blogger.
On this day, when we celebrate our freedoms, paid for with the lives of so many, the coercion against democracy, the ever-increasing erosion of democracy and the free enterprise system continues, and you are part of it. You are, I fact choosing it. And while you may think that by choosing it you are exercising a democratic right, perhaps it is different than that. There is no doubt that democracy *means* free enterprise, right? If you live in a democracy, we have free enterprise. This is normal. We take it for granted; we think it’s “just there”. We also think that our right to choose is just there. But is it?
We like to think that as adults we are mature in thinking, think deeply about things, and try to do the right thing. Or things. So how can your choice be taken away? How can you be actually “choosing’ to leave your democratic/free enterprise system while at the same time proclaiming the symbolism of Remembrance Day (being freedom and democracy), and loudly (sometimes) proclaiming that our system is better than others because we are “free”? Just how free are you, when it comes to making decisions about money, in our democratic/free enterprise system? Our free enterprise system, by the way, is based on the freedom to start and to have a business, and our democracy allows for anyone to do that (based on fair competition).
Still with me? We all know the above. So do our governments, at all levels (federal, provincial, municipal and town). Big business knows it. Advertisers know it. Other types of government know it (socialist, communist, etc.). And a variety of agencies, too. Whether it’s a political or corporate entity, they all use research (polls, psychology, studies) to determine how to achieve their goals, wishes and aims. They know us. They know the consumer. In governance, they know, (or think they know), and how to govern us. We wouldn’t have the need for political science, anthropologists, psychologists or sociologists otherwise. (lol). We, or rather they, need to understand humans and how to use that understanding.
So how is it that you can’t refuse a good sales pitch? (even tho’ you might have some inner qualms about it?).How come you can’t (or is it won’t) refuse a low low price on something, even tho’ your innards are thinking there might be something wrong with it?
We aren’t the poorest country, province or county in the world. We are one of the richest nations. Most of us, in Digby County, are not cooking our meals over open fires on the street as our only way of cooking or obtaining heat. We “choose” to BBQ in the summer. We “choose” to sit around a camp fire and toast marshmallow or warm our hands. And this is one of my points: “It’s the POOR who don’t have choices, right? They “have to” choose the lowest cost of doing anything, the lowest price from food to transportation. They’re the ones whose choices are severely limited.
If you are above the poverty line, do you have other choices? Can you make other choices than what’s the cheapest? Can you make another choice other than what’s the bottom line? Can you make another choice if your innards are not sure that it’s the right thing to do?
Why is it that there is a “wealthy” (not below the poverty line) person at the food bank? A neighbour accepting $500. a month not to tell a next door neighbour that a huge, destructive development will be taking place right next to him? An area where the standard of living is 10, 000 times over Biafra’s taking “donations” to the area’s clubs, societies, receipts of ball caps and T Shirts, for an activity that may cause others to lose their homes or may hurt the wildlife or even remove the landscape and affect quality of life? Don’t these same people or entities already enjoy quality of life? And it is usually the bigger organization, political structures, or bigger businesses that are “bribing” you to do what your innards are telling you isn’t right.
They are removing your choice by offering you something. They know that you, in your income bracket, which is not the lowest, will not refuse a “donations”, a “gift”, or a lower price.
Hence, we get the millionaires scrimping on things, billionaires low-paying their employees, the wealthy outfitting their enterprises from second-hand stores. Others using services really just meant for the poor. We are not that poor, you know. But it is not just the “wealthy”. Those who can well afford it, or are not below the poverty level are sucked way past principles, and incidentally, out of their choice, by a buck-or two.
You can get sucked into what current demonstrators would call corporate greed, by accepting a donation to your favourite cause. You don’t want to admit that it means you’ve been sucked into “theirs*. For example, accepting a “gift”, or donation from a fast food joint for placing their logo on the playground. You’ve also, now by popular opinion, contributed to the highest rates of obesity, heart disease and illness this society has had EVER. Not only your kids, but your friends’ kids. Some people were “sold” by political and corporate agencies to put wind turbines in a sensitive ecological and pristine nature areas, clear cutting the forest and hillsides to do it, removing the vegetation that controls run-off, and provides the oxygen that humans need to breathe; taking way the homes and habitats of may wild creatures, putting spinning blades in the air on the migratory bird flyway of many visiting and rare bird species, and obliterating the landscape, which provides quality of life to humans and other species, and flies in the face of a now global phrase, altho’ you may not have heard it before: “landscape conservation”, which is now recognized as needed, and valuable. If you think well we’re only one small area, then you are conveniently missing the point-the bigger picture. The world cannot sustain these on-going, increasing, and cumulative onslaughts.
Moving on: doesn’t the world seem to be going towards bigger and bigger “entities”? And do you know why you don’t plant a lawn full of Kentucky bluegrass only? Hopefully you’ll see the connection soon. You don’t plant a lawn full of one species or one variety of grass only. Why? Because if the one species (or monoculture, which you’ve created) of grass get a disease, your whole lawn is destroyed.
Yet farm operations are huge operations now. Some now are controlled by larger corporations such as Monsanto. Even seeds now are controlled by about 3 huge entities. I’m not saying that they did this, but if farmers were sucked into an offer by some of these big “daddies”, then their “no choice” choice as the larger entities counted on, has led to the farmers having no choice at all, from seeds to crop, and us having no choice about what we eat-genetically modified plants, seeds and all. Even the seeds are owned by only a very small number of companies. Maybe it’s true, but it’s counted on, that you will have no choice but to accept the offer.
The bigger entities’ (government or big enterprises) premise is that the general population will always take an offer of money or a lower price for something. And then you’re in *their* pocket, hooked into their agenda of corporate greed, or for the purpose of creating a monopoly-for control and money, for power and ego. But remember the lawn?
What ever happened, and what’s happening to the little guy? It’s the little guys who will prevent the “monoculture” or lawn disaster. Are you starting to understand what I’m saying?
Back to politics: free enterprise, which goes along with our democratic system, is base on any number of people who want to start a business, being free to do so, and trying to exist in fair competition with other (small) businesses, and according to all that market mumbo jumbo. Far right socialism or communism is the opposite .Everything is owned and run by the State (or province?). It tries to gobble everything unto itself, eliminating small business, and much of what we call “free will”, our freedoms and our choices. The “offer” to you, to make you accept this, is a lower price for things or some things. “The STATE” or the province, with your money, of course, will subsidize this .Or that. You become part of the State and are controlled by it, just like, for example the big cold land in the north of Europe. Which we, in our democracies hated. We fought wars against governments like that one. Millions of people over the world died for democracy and our freedoms. On this November the11th, 2011, how would you say we are doing?
You may not this a fair parallel, but on Wednesday night, there was a meeting, in which the President of particular operation proudly proclaimed that “WE (his type of operation) have taken over most of Nova Scotia. There’s only one slice left”.
People, caught up in the glossy performance production of promo, in which no discussion was allowed except for 2 questions), almost clapped for him. Imagine.
His operation is subsidized. A lower price. If you don’t “get” this, and the bigger picture, I’m almost sorry you’ve read this far. It’s been a long read, I know.
Yesterday, someone whom I can’t find the right descriptor for….an emissary (political) or agent of his), came to me, professing of potential “offers’ soon to come. The implication was “if only I would agree…”.
What do you think folks? What should I do? What should *you* do?
As always, my opinion (without predudice), the Blogger.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Senior's Legal Info Session
Legal Information Session With Ned Chase, QC TEP of Counsel, TMC Law Thursday, November 17th 1:30pm Digby Curling Center This FREE information session will empower you to make decisions for your care, your finances and your future. Ned has a special interest in Financial Abuse and Power of Attorney process and works diligently to educate peers, policy makers and seniors on tips to avoid misuse. All are welcome. Call Dawn Thomas, Seniors Safety Coordinator for more information or to pre register. 245-2579 or dawn.thomas@rcmp-grc.gc.ca The Use and Abuse of Power of Attorney and The Personal Directives Act
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Find and Prepare Candidates
Da Bus is a valid and legal notforprofit society. A society can legally hire or contract with a service provider to do work for them.
Kathleen's Shuttle and Tours is a legal.and licensed small business and is permitted by the URB to do shuttle service, charters and tours. Charters are where any individual or organization charters the van and driver to perform work for them.
The Da Bus society is an existing local organization with a board of local community members. It wishes to provide subsidized transportation to its own citizens of the area.
Transport de Clare is situated in another district of its own, which has its own governance structure. The T de C society was originally created, presumably, to provide wheelchair service in that district and was content to do so until recent times. The head of that organization then declared "he wanted" Digby County: Digby, Digby Neck and Islands and Bear River. And that he wasn't going to restrict himself to wheelchair people. He was going to serve the general population AND remain subsidized.
Don't you see a problem with this?
Da Bus wants to start subsidized service in your area immediately and can do so with some funding. It has asked both town council (Digby town would also benefit from the service) and municipal council (which represents Digby District, not Clare) for funding. The society is applying for other funding and seeking donations to purchase its own bus, which will be wheelchair accessible.
Over 150 signatures on a petition to get Da Bus to provide the service was collected in less than 5 days part-time, in your area, and more have come in. Council has ignored the direction and wants of its own communities, and is fixing to bring in an operation from another district entirely.
Do you question that? When *there is already an existing operation* in their own community? Are your hard-earned tax dollars going to go to the District of Clare?
I, Kathleen Gidney, owner/operator of Kathleen's Shuttle and Tours, am not on the board of the Da Bus society. I, however, know the area and many of its people, my family has been here for over 200 years. I already have a service that operates in the area, which can easily be contracted for my shuttle bus to do society work until the society gets its own bus. I am willing to do this.
So what's the problem with councils? They are stalling. Or bewildered. Or something we don't know about is in the picture and "they ain't sayin'".
Number one: Municipal councilor Randal Amero is on the board of Transport de Clare. This councilor tried to "rip me apart" at a recent council meeting, and tried to tell me my own licensing body would not allow me to do what was proposed. I knew I could and dutifully checked with the Utility and Review Board and what Mr. Amero was saying was wrong. I felt "attacked" during Amero's interrogation, and we can imagine why he did that.
But why was he allowed to speak (and attack me) in the first place? Don't you wonder about that and why council allowed him to speak?
Number Two: It may be that you will lose locally-operated subsidized transit in the area because: Councilor David Tudor of the Islands did not appear to want it. He was opposed to door-to-door subsidized transit because: "some people don't have phones".
Number Three: Warden Gregory, "representing" most of Digby Neck appeared to oppose the society's proposal to provide subsidized transit for you. Why? Why don't you ask her? and tell me. My email address is goingwithkathleen's@gmail.com or goingtodigby@gmail.com
Question authority, folks. It's a great bumper sticker and also a great practice. Question your representatives about their right to "represent" your area. Make your views known and that you are tired of them NOT representing you but making their own decisions together-themselves-without hearing you-behind closed doors.
The question of who should run your lives, and the question of whether they will turn to a locally operated and community-run service hangs in the balance and needs your help. Make donations. Phone Linda Gregory 245-2616 or put it in writing (even better, they can't ignore it) at lgregory@municipality.digby.ca Write a letter to the editor of both the Digby Courier and the Halifax Herald. Write to Greg Kerr.
Tell both or all of your "representatives" that their time to rule this way will not be supported if they don't support local organizations and local businesses and stop sending the money-your money-elsewhere.
After all the above, TdeC shouldn't get to do this-TdeC proposed the same thing.
Da Bus should be funded as it is an existing local organization.
My opinion and my say. Without predjudice: Blogger
Kathleen's Shuttle and Tours is a legal.and licensed small business and is permitted by the URB to do shuttle service, charters and tours. Charters are where any individual or organization charters the van and driver to perform work for them.
The Da Bus society is an existing local organization with a board of local community members. It wishes to provide subsidized transportation to its own citizens of the area.
Transport de Clare is situated in another district of its own, which has its own governance structure. The T de C society was originally created, presumably, to provide wheelchair service in that district and was content to do so until recent times. The head of that organization then declared "he wanted" Digby County: Digby, Digby Neck and Islands and Bear River. And that he wasn't going to restrict himself to wheelchair people. He was going to serve the general population AND remain subsidized.
Don't you see a problem with this?
Da Bus wants to start subsidized service in your area immediately and can do so with some funding. It has asked both town council (Digby town would also benefit from the service) and municipal council (which represents Digby District, not Clare) for funding. The society is applying for other funding and seeking donations to purchase its own bus, which will be wheelchair accessible.
Over 150 signatures on a petition to get Da Bus to provide the service was collected in less than 5 days part-time, in your area, and more have come in. Council has ignored the direction and wants of its own communities, and is fixing to bring in an operation from another district entirely.
Do you question that? When *there is already an existing operation* in their own community? Are your hard-earned tax dollars going to go to the District of Clare?
I, Kathleen Gidney, owner/operator of Kathleen's Shuttle and Tours, am not on the board of the Da Bus society. I, however, know the area and many of its people, my family has been here for over 200 years. I already have a service that operates in the area, which can easily be contracted for my shuttle bus to do society work until the society gets its own bus. I am willing to do this.
So what's the problem with councils? They are stalling. Or bewildered. Or something we don't know about is in the picture and "they ain't sayin'".
Number one: Municipal councilor Randal Amero is on the board of Transport de Clare. This councilor tried to "rip me apart" at a recent council meeting, and tried to tell me my own licensing body would not allow me to do what was proposed. I knew I could and dutifully checked with the Utility and Review Board and what Mr. Amero was saying was wrong. I felt "attacked" during Amero's interrogation, and we can imagine why he did that.
But why was he allowed to speak (and attack me) in the first place? Don't you wonder about that and why council allowed him to speak?
Number Two: It may be that you will lose locally-operated subsidized transit in the area because: Councilor David Tudor of the Islands did not appear to want it. He was opposed to door-to-door subsidized transit because: "some people don't have phones".
Number Three: Warden Gregory, "representing" most of Digby Neck appeared to oppose the society's proposal to provide subsidized transit for you. Why? Why don't you ask her? and tell me. My email address is goingwithkathleen's@gmail.com or goingtodigby@gmail.com
Question authority, folks. It's a great bumper sticker and also a great practice. Question your representatives about their right to "represent" your area. Make your views known and that you are tired of them NOT representing you but making their own decisions together-themselves-without hearing you-behind closed doors.
The question of who should run your lives, and the question of whether they will turn to a locally operated and community-run service hangs in the balance and needs your help. Make donations. Phone Linda Gregory 245-2616 or put it in writing (even better, they can't ignore it) at lgregory@municipality.digby.ca Write a letter to the editor of both the Digby Courier and the Halifax Herald. Write to Greg Kerr.
Tell both or all of your "representatives" that their time to rule this way will not be supported if they don't support local organizations and local businesses and stop sending the money-your money-elsewhere.
After all the above, TdeC shouldn't get to do this-TdeC proposed the same thing.
Da Bus should be funded as it is an existing local organization.
My opinion and my say. Without predjudice: Blogger
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Council meeting last night
Did anyone at the meeting get the impression that Councilor Tudor did not want door to door subsidized transportation on the Islands because some people don't have phones? Blogger
Presentation to Municipal Council Sep.26, '11
Blogger: this is the complete text of the presentation made to Municipal Council n the 26th. Pls note that on the special meeting of the 27th, Councilor Amero, who is on the board of Transport de Clarewas all for Transport de Clare, and said that *that* society that would look at the numbers. Pls read the text of the Da Bus presentation which all had heard. Then most councilors said they didn't want a study (which, of course we all know would produce the numbers). Council had been all for doing a feasibility study.
Councilor Amero also claimed that the society called Da Bus, when asked if they could provide the service said that they couldn't. Pls read the text of the presentation all heard. The society called Da Bus said they would get a wheelchair bus with funding.
In the meantime, readers, you should know that at the meeting last nite, it was revealed that your municipality is losing $180,000 each year on King's Transit and admitting that ridership has decreased approx. 29% in the past little while. In my view and that of others after the meeting (not including council) that $180,000 (multiplied by 7 years?) could be better spent on a worthwhile service like Da Bus in Digby municipality, and Transport de Clare, down in Clare, if he really needs it.
It would buy a wheelchair bus right now for the local municipality, instead of waiting for the applications for other funding to come in.
Council is thinking about spending 10,000 (more) of your municipal tax money and get 10,000 from the town of Digby tax money to give Kings Transit two more stops. Do you people from outside the town feel left out? The whole transportation discussions were originated supposedly from a concern about poor people in the remote areas. And all the while, both councils have been expressing a concern about the lack of ridership on Kings Transit. $20,000 more? when Da Bus could be bringing in the people they supposedly were concerned about from the rural areas and providing them with subsidized transportation? Are they talking out of both sides of their mouths? It would cost much less than now a proposed total of$200,000 to get a community bus for the Da Bus society that would get people from the rural areas into Digby and perhaps include the ferry and Smith's Cove area and have a successful operation from Bear River to the town. Remember, the new society called Da Bus, *wants* people to get on Da Bus! and this organization is a local one and it's all local people from this community who are on the board.
Councilor Amero, who is on the board of Transport de Clare, claimed that the Digby municipal area Da Bus is a "private" operation. HERE BE IT KNOWN: It is no more "private" than Transport de Clare.
What is going on here, folks?
Jim MacAlpine wonders how much more money should we spend on transit and transit studies, but there seems to be a distinct avoidance on the part of the pro Kings Transit study to determine the numbers that would state a need for more Kings Transit service, and now the council's apparent avoidance of any study that would determine need elsewhere also, except Amero's promotion of the society he is on that *they* would produce numbers. He was trying to say that T de C would do a good thing by producing numbers and Da Bus wouldn't- which of course, it had stated it would. But then it seemed like all council decided it did not want to determine the numbers of people who could use or would use or who need a subsidized transportation service on Digby Neck and Islands and elsewhere. Da Bus proposed providing the service to the area and collecting data while doing it. Why not? Doesn't this sound like a good idea?
12 pages of names and signatures of people in the area were provided to Warden Gregory and Deputy Warden MacAlpine of people who want subsidized transportation by a Digby area community organization (called Da Bus). It was ignored. YOU were ignored. How do you feel about that?
Your thoughts and opinions on these very strange events are welcome. Just write: goingtodigby@gmail.com and I'll post them here.
Dear Council Members
Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I thought it would be beneficial to say a few thins tonite about the service proposed under the auspices of the Society called oDa Bus, which is a notforprofit society. It is designed to help members of our community to over come the barriers to accessing goods and services such a groceries, banks, medical appointments etc that will help them stay in this community or stay in their homes longer and helping them have a better life here.
It is not a taxi service. They cannot flag down a ride, they must phone ahead and pre-book. The service will pick people up at their door. The society will begin this service on Digby Neck and both islands. The travel from this area would go up to Digby and start the return home in mid to late afternoon.
It is a local service provided by a board of local community members and the service portion carried out by a local person. This is a useful and caring endeavour, and would be an enhancement to life in Digby County. People could stay in their homes longer, and stay in the area longer, rather than leave.
And we would rather our tax dollars stay in the community as well. If council endorses the idea of Buy Local, it would seem right to spend the locally obtained tax dollars on supporting its own community-developed initiatives. Before, there wasn’t a notforprofit transportation society in existence. There is one now.
The society as well would employ a local person who would effect the service. That person would, when the day is done, go and spend their paycheck in *this* community. The societies act permits a notforprofit society to hire or contract with someone to perform work for them. Da Bus can contract with Kathleen’s Shuttle, the existing transportation provider in the area, to kickstart the program as soon as possible, and when more funding sources are accessed, the society will buy a community wheelchair accessible bus of its own.
As the existing transportation provider in the area, I am very familiar with the area and its communities and its people. You will see by documents that I have given you that the communities all up the Neck and Islands support the proposal. And the people of Digby do too. While using my vehicle to initiate the program, I will conduct a study which will provide data on the number of calls received, the number of pickups, the approximate age group of interested people and their mobility issues, for example. The data may be easier obtained by someone who is a local in the community. And, my family has been in the area for…oh, at least a couple hundred years.
This proposal also helps the municipality avoid competing with a local business by funding a similar operation. The goal, I think, is, as the society proposes, to enhance services, and not take away from what already exists. There now seems to be a community of local officials who believe in the essence of this proposal: “I think we should respect local businesses”-deputy warden MacAlpine; the words of town Deputy Mayor Mike Bartlett in the July 19 issue of the Digby Courier about the Maud Lewis merchandise: promoting and helping and not hurting, and Danny Harvieux in the joint Annapolis-Digby initiative, much in support of buying local and using services we have.
Da Bus is a workable and *wonderful* solution to enhancement of services while avoiding taking away from services; a solution and an initiative developed within the community, by its own community members. Please see the board of directors in the documents submitted. Your support is important to Da Bus, and our community.
Councilor Amero also claimed that the society called Da Bus, when asked if they could provide the service said that they couldn't. Pls read the text of the presentation all heard. The society called Da Bus said they would get a wheelchair bus with funding.
In the meantime, readers, you should know that at the meeting last nite, it was revealed that your municipality is losing $180,000 each year on King's Transit and admitting that ridership has decreased approx. 29% in the past little while. In my view and that of others after the meeting (not including council) that $180,000 (multiplied by 7 years?) could be better spent on a worthwhile service like Da Bus in Digby municipality, and Transport de Clare, down in Clare, if he really needs it.
It would buy a wheelchair bus right now for the local municipality, instead of waiting for the applications for other funding to come in.
Council is thinking about spending 10,000 (more) of your municipal tax money and get 10,000 from the town of Digby tax money to give Kings Transit two more stops. Do you people from outside the town feel left out? The whole transportation discussions were originated supposedly from a concern about poor people in the remote areas. And all the while, both councils have been expressing a concern about the lack of ridership on Kings Transit. $20,000 more? when Da Bus could be bringing in the people they supposedly were concerned about from the rural areas and providing them with subsidized transportation? Are they talking out of both sides of their mouths? It would cost much less than now a proposed total of$200,000 to get a community bus for the Da Bus society that would get people from the rural areas into Digby and perhaps include the ferry and Smith's Cove area and have a successful operation from Bear River to the town. Remember, the new society called Da Bus, *wants* people to get on Da Bus! and this organization is a local one and it's all local people from this community who are on the board.
Councilor Amero, who is on the board of Transport de Clare, claimed that the Digby municipal area Da Bus is a "private" operation. HERE BE IT KNOWN: It is no more "private" than Transport de Clare.
What is going on here, folks?
Jim MacAlpine wonders how much more money should we spend on transit and transit studies, but there seems to be a distinct avoidance on the part of the pro Kings Transit study to determine the numbers that would state a need for more Kings Transit service, and now the council's apparent avoidance of any study that would determine need elsewhere also, except Amero's promotion of the society he is on that *they* would produce numbers. He was trying to say that T de C would do a good thing by producing numbers and Da Bus wouldn't- which of course, it had stated it would. But then it seemed like all council decided it did not want to determine the numbers of people who could use or would use or who need a subsidized transportation service on Digby Neck and Islands and elsewhere. Da Bus proposed providing the service to the area and collecting data while doing it. Why not? Doesn't this sound like a good idea?
12 pages of names and signatures of people in the area were provided to Warden Gregory and Deputy Warden MacAlpine of people who want subsidized transportation by a Digby area community organization (called Da Bus). It was ignored. YOU were ignored. How do you feel about that?
Your thoughts and opinions on these very strange events are welcome. Just write: goingtodigby@gmail.com and I'll post them here.
Dear Council Members
Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I thought it would be beneficial to say a few thins tonite about the service proposed under the auspices of the Society called oDa Bus, which is a notforprofit society. It is designed to help members of our community to over come the barriers to accessing goods and services such a groceries, banks, medical appointments etc that will help them stay in this community or stay in their homes longer and helping them have a better life here.
It is not a taxi service. They cannot flag down a ride, they must phone ahead and pre-book. The service will pick people up at their door. The society will begin this service on Digby Neck and both islands. The travel from this area would go up to Digby and start the return home in mid to late afternoon.
It is a local service provided by a board of local community members and the service portion carried out by a local person. This is a useful and caring endeavour, and would be an enhancement to life in Digby County. People could stay in their homes longer, and stay in the area longer, rather than leave.
And we would rather our tax dollars stay in the community as well. If council endorses the idea of Buy Local, it would seem right to spend the locally obtained tax dollars on supporting its own community-developed initiatives. Before, there wasn’t a notforprofit transportation society in existence. There is one now.
The society as well would employ a local person who would effect the service. That person would, when the day is done, go and spend their paycheck in *this* community. The societies act permits a notforprofit society to hire or contract with someone to perform work for them. Da Bus can contract with Kathleen’s Shuttle, the existing transportation provider in the area, to kickstart the program as soon as possible, and when more funding sources are accessed, the society will buy a community wheelchair accessible bus of its own.
As the existing transportation provider in the area, I am very familiar with the area and its communities and its people. You will see by documents that I have given you that the communities all up the Neck and Islands support the proposal. And the people of Digby do too. While using my vehicle to initiate the program, I will conduct a study which will provide data on the number of calls received, the number of pickups, the approximate age group of interested people and their mobility issues, for example. The data may be easier obtained by someone who is a local in the community. And, my family has been in the area for…oh, at least a couple hundred years.
This proposal also helps the municipality avoid competing with a local business by funding a similar operation. The goal, I think, is, as the society proposes, to enhance services, and not take away from what already exists. There now seems to be a community of local officials who believe in the essence of this proposal: “I think we should respect local businesses”-deputy warden MacAlpine; the words of town Deputy Mayor Mike Bartlett in the July 19 issue of the Digby Courier about the Maud Lewis merchandise: promoting and helping and not hurting, and Danny Harvieux in the joint Annapolis-Digby initiative, much in support of buying local and using services we have.
Da Bus is a workable and *wonderful* solution to enhancement of services while avoiding taking away from services; a solution and an initiative developed within the community, by its own community members. Please see the board of directors in the documents submitted. Your support is important to Da Bus, and our community.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
FESTIVAL IN THE COVE
A great big round of applause for those who participated in or attended the Festival in the Cove on Aug. 20 and 21st! It was a great start to what is sure to be an interesting and fun annual event. We had an artisan and flea market, Scouts were there with a BBQ, karaoke was a fun evening event and followed up the following day with an awe-inspiring author's reading and drum circle. Thanks go out to Danny, Debbie and Davey, Shirley, Mabel, Trisha, Pat and Joanna, Basma, Sheila and Harold, the summer crew from the States, Mac Bisop for use of the school, Kristy for helping, CJLS which paid us a visit and left snacks, Wayne and company and each and every person who came to the event.
THEY SAID IT COULDNT BE DONE!! We showed 'em. We showed em that a festival on Digby Neck CAN happen, it can be successful, and it can be done with a good spirit.
Looking ahead to the next year, we hope to improve upon the last and keep doing so every year. This was the first year. And nothing will be perfect in the second year. Or the third. Or more. Imperfection is normal, and it takes getting used to when you see it in others (smile). It is a fallacy to think that any event will be perfect when it involves the participation of any other people, and each one of us has a different view of what is perfect, and there will always be someone who says it wasn't perfect-according to them.
But perfect can be the establishment of a festival on the Neck. Perfect can mean that more than one person had a table at the market. Perfect, or more than perfect, can mean that 20 people went to karaoke! Perfect can mean the image-evoking words- in public- of a young person who said she was too shy to do this and yet did, perfect can mean the echo of your heartbeat in an African drum, and perfect can mean the happy smile of a Scout just barely clearing the top of the counter where he was serving refreshments to visitors. Perfect was the generousity of a walking stick carver when he gave away his creative work at the end of the day, and perfect was the generousity of the hookers who took the time to talk about their work and show it, when some weren't even selling it, and perfect was the ease with which both particpants and visitors spoke, joked and laughed with each other and began to build relationships- I saw their smiles, I saw them talking with each other and laughing and I saw people buying each others' work or items for sale.
I SAW THIS EVENT AS PERFECT! It all depends on what "place" you are coming from.
Many many thanks to all of you!! from, I believe, many of us.
Kathleen
Onwards and upwards to next year!!
THEY SAID IT COULDNT BE DONE!! We showed 'em. We showed em that a festival on Digby Neck CAN happen, it can be successful, and it can be done with a good spirit.
Looking ahead to the next year, we hope to improve upon the last and keep doing so every year. This was the first year. And nothing will be perfect in the second year. Or the third. Or more. Imperfection is normal, and it takes getting used to when you see it in others (smile). It is a fallacy to think that any event will be perfect when it involves the participation of any other people, and each one of us has a different view of what is perfect, and there will always be someone who says it wasn't perfect-according to them.
But perfect can be the establishment of a festival on the Neck. Perfect can mean that more than one person had a table at the market. Perfect, or more than perfect, can mean that 20 people went to karaoke! Perfect can mean the image-evoking words- in public- of a young person who said she was too shy to do this and yet did, perfect can mean the echo of your heartbeat in an African drum, and perfect can mean the happy smile of a Scout just barely clearing the top of the counter where he was serving refreshments to visitors. Perfect was the generousity of a walking stick carver when he gave away his creative work at the end of the day, and perfect was the generousity of the hookers who took the time to talk about their work and show it, when some weren't even selling it, and perfect was the ease with which both particpants and visitors spoke, joked and laughed with each other and began to build relationships- I saw their smiles, I saw them talking with each other and laughing and I saw people buying each others' work or items for sale.
I SAW THIS EVENT AS PERFECT! It all depends on what "place" you are coming from.
Many many thanks to all of you!! from, I believe, many of us.
Kathleen
Onwards and upwards to next year!!
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