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, as this world resource is diminishing rapidly and yet contributes so much to our lives and the animal/plant kingdom. 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.

The erosion of Canada's democracy
By Ralph Surette
April 11, 2011
Mr. Surette frequently authors articles which appear in the Halifax Chronicle Herald

I've spent the week fielding an avalanche of emails in response to my column of last week, "What's at stake in this election," that revealed typical Harperite manipulations from the largely ignored field of fisheries. They're from all over Canada, and they're still coming in as I write -- spread by people sending it to their friends, putting it on Facebook, and so on. So, if you're not one of those bored with the subject, let me carry on a bit more on the shaky issue of democracy.

Among the responses was a link sent by a reader that led me to something I almost wish I'd not seen -- an article in Australia's national newspaper, The Australian, entitled "Canada watches its democracy erode."

The author is Ramesh Thakur, a former assistant secretary general of the UN, author of some 30 books on governance, ethics, law and related topics, now affiliated with the University of Waterloo in Ontario and Griffiths University in Australia. Educated in India and Canada, his view is a substantial international one.

"Edmund Burke noted that all that was necessary for evil to triumph was for good men to do nothing," he writes. "Canadians are certainly good and worthy folks, but they suffer an excess of civil obedience, politeness and lack of civic rage that could be harnessed to combat political atrophy. At a time when Arabs risk life and limb for political freedoms, Canadians seem largely apathetic about the erosion of their democracy."

That's rough. But what else is an arm's-length observer to conclude? The Bev Oda affair, to top off a trend, indicates that "lying to Parliament, a cardinal sin of Westminster-style democracy, has become a political tactic," says Thakur. The degradation of Parliament goes on, through its prorogation for political advantage, the "cynically published guidelines to disrupt hostile parliamentary committees," a minister who abuses his public office to court ethnic votes and who attacks a judge for political-ideological reasons, civil servants and diplomats squelched and fired, boards stacked with ideologues, aid groups that don't toe the hard line cut, and generally more abuses than you can shake a stick at. He quotes author and Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin, who describes an "arc of duplicity" which is "remarkable to behold." What would you call it?

In addition, he mentions something that we are indeed too polite to mention ourselves, except in hushed tones. The new Governor General is a respected academic, but that's not mainly why he's there. He's there because he did the prime minister a monumental favour by narrowly drawing up the terms of the Mulroney/Schreiber inquiry to exclude the most potentially damaging questions. Is this another stacked office, and what would it mean if the GG has key decisions to make in the event of another Harper minority?

Yet, to be fair -- and as some of my emailers have reminded me -- it's not all Harper. It's just that he's pushing it dangerously over the top. Thakur puts it this way: "The centralization of power in the hands of the prime minister and political staffers -- with the resulting diminution of the role and status of cabinet, parliaments and parliamentarians -- is common to Anglo-Saxon democracies in Australia, Canada, Britain and the U.S., but the extent to which constitutional conventions, parliamentary etiquette and civil institutions of good governance have been worn away in Canada is cause for concern."
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Let me add that another cause for concern is the extent to which the democratic instinct is diminishing among the people. Our sense, growing imperceptibly for decades, is that the governments we elect have less and less actual authority in the face of globalization and the growing power of corporations. Further, we are valuing money over the good of society and its governance. Money is everything -- or as that blowhard tagline on CBC TV keeps repeating ad nauseam: "Greed is good and I love money." It's the billionaire culture, but it has trickled down. It's "me and my money" that counts, not the integrity of the whole. That's why Harper can use a spurious argument -- the economy will collapse if I go -- so effectively, even though the economy, down or up, has little to do with him. It's all about the money and nothing else.

Can we shape up and stop the bleeding before the world really catches on to what's going on? Thakur says it's still not clear whether all this is "an indictment of Canadians' indifference to democratic rights being curtailed or of the opposition parties, which have failed to harness the silent majority's outrage." Time is running short to find out.

Meanwhile, one comment on The Australian's site was from "Reed of Nova Scotia, Canada" who says, "I'm at a loss for why I have to be getting accurate news from the other side of the planet." Good one, Reed.

Ralph Surette is a veteran freelance journalist living in Yarmouth County in Nova Scotia. This article was originally published in The Chronicle Herald.

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Why They Protest

Why they protest
Against all odds, the Occupy Nova Scotia group is demonstrating values that we’ll all need to find justice.
by Tim Bousquet @Tim_Bousquet
from "The Coast" publication

Graham Pilsworth

Judging by my Twitter feed, the Occupy Nova Scotia demonstrators are annoying some people. "Canada didn't have American-type financial deregulation, so the protests are misplaced," is a typical tweet dismissing the group camped out in Grand Parade (and who mayor Peter Kelly is threatening to evict).

It's true that Canada didn't follow the insane deregulation route charted out by the US, but that wasn't because Canadian banks are somehow more virtuous than their American brethren. Indeed, if you go back and read the business press of the 1990s, you'll see Canadian bankers and their political supporters, including Stephen Harper, were demanding that Canada deregulate the industry, and it was only the stalwart opposition of Jean Chrétien that prevented that from happening.

More to the point, while Canadian banks weren't able to directly join the $620 trillion global trade in derivatives---that's 10 times the actual money supply in all the world--- Canada was making many other policy decisions that contributed to what journalist Chris Hedges calls the "corporate coup." And in terms of shifting wealth from working people to the wealthiest one percent over the past two decades, Canada is third, after only the US and Australia---see a detailed analysis of Canada's horrid economic record via thecoast.ca/CanadasOnePercent.

While the richest are doing just fine, Canadian workers' pension funds have been gutted, students graduating with huge debt loads face bleak employment opportunities and those lucky enough to have jobs rightly fret about the future as the federal government attacks unions at every turn. And on the bottom edge of society sits a growing number of the completely dispossessed, some of whom are camped out in Grand Parade.

Critics of the occupation condemn the demonstrators for lacking detailed explanations of their position and understandings of the world of global finance, but since when do people need to be certified with a PhD in economics or political science before they are given the right to protest? And let's remember that most of our economic and political elite actually created the problem in the first place, breaking the global economy. Why should we trust anyone with such credentials?

To be sure, along with an incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated core, the Occupy NS group includes street kids, some homeless people and a very few people with mental health issues. It's not likely everyone on Grand Parade can maneuver through an academic debate on economic policy issues, but so what? Their very presence is giving testimony that's better than a thousand textbooks: We matter, damn it, and our society has failed us.

Having spent some time at Occupy NS, I've come away with profound respect for the enterprise. Even the most disenfranchised of the group, who have legitimate reason to be most angry, have committed themselves to non-violence and are working through the process of understanding the consensus decision-making process. With little outside help and a lot working against them, and using only their own resourcefulness and sense of justice, they've created a workable community that provides basic health care and a decent meal for all, that takes a responsibility for its most vulnerable, that has shared purpose. They're demonstrating values that are eluding the larger society; they should be proud of themselves.

And what about the rest of us: Are we proud of ourselves? Are we doing the best we can to object and stand up for ourselves in a broken economy? Or do we just put up with it, getting along to get along with an unjust system?

I met an engaging young woman involved with Occupy NS who had parked herself in Granville Mall to do outreach to NSCAD students, stressing the need for solidarity in the face of a common struggle. She's right, of course, and the rest of us can learn from her---we're in this together. The powerless have thrown down the gauntlet: How do we do right by each other?

The one percent has succeeded in coming to the trough time and again, demanding that the 99 percent bail out their false economy with ever deeper austerity, raided retirement funds and broken wage contracts. We could keep acquiescing, or we could learn from the Occupy folks and say enough is enough

The Occupy Movement and Halifax , N.S.

Mayor Kelly Muffs His Moment
Submitted by Silver Donald Cameron on Tue, 11/15/2011 - 19:54
from The Green Interview www.greeninterview.com

History just tossed Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly the political opportunity of a lifetime. Kelly blew it spectacularly. And everyone in the city is diminished by his failure.

For decades, the chattering classes have been deploring the apathy of the young. The young don't care about public affairs, they don't vote, they have no interest in democracy and social justice. Imprisoned between their earbuds, wired into their iPods and PlayStations, focussed on nasty music and texting endlessly, they're immersed in selfish amusements.

And then, one October day, democracy erupted on the Mayor's front lawn, right in front of his office window, in the Grand Parade square in downtown Halifax. Suddenly there was a little encampment of people, mostly young, crying aloud for democracy and social justice, trying to practice it, their tiny colourful tents encircling the cenotaph that honours the Haligonian men and women who died for democracy and social justice. A little community in the middle of the city, full of the vigour and idealism of youth, eager to address the multiple wrongs of our time – gross social inequality, the despoliation of the planet, women's rights, public health, climate change, the war industry, the patenting of life forms, the affordability of education, trade rules, all kinds of things.

Occupy Nova Scotia in the Grand Parade (from Occupy NS site)
Occupy Nova Scotia in the Grand Parade (from Occupy NS site)
What an opportunity!

And what was Mayor Kelly's attitude to this outburst of democracy and youthful idealism?

He saw it as a problem.

As the protests rolled around the world, the Halifax occupiers settled in, some of them with their dogs. The fire inspectors and the health inspectors came and made suggestions, which the occupiers followed. As they did elsewhere, the occupiers developed a community, making decisions by consensus, compensating for the lack of microphones by repeating aloud whatever the speaker was saying. Labour unions brought them truckloads of bottled water. A nearby restaurant gave them tubs of soup. Sympathizers – including me – brought them warm clothing and boxes of food.

Remembrance Day approached. The Grand Parade, where Occupy Nova Scotia was camped, is the place where the annual remembrance ceremonies are held. The Mayor wanted the square cleared for the ceremonies. The protesters discussed the situation with the Mayor and the veterans. They wanted to win support, and non-violence is at the core of their world-view. So they put poppies on their windbreakers and agreed that they would move to Victoria Park, a dozen blocks away, until after Remembrance Day, and then move back. And the Mayor allowed them to believe that he agreed. His later interviews about whether or not he intended what happened next reveal him as an absolute virtuoso of weaseling and dodging.

Remembrance Day in Nova Scotia was so stormy that many ceremonies were moved inside, though not in Halifax. The wind howled, the leaves flew, the rain fell in torrents. At 11:00 at the Grand Parade, dignitaries and others laid wreaths. One of the wreaths was laid jointly by an Afghanistan veteran and a representative from Occupy Nova Scotia. The occupier met Mayor Kelly and shook his hand. The Mayor smiled.

And at that very moment, the police encircled the encampment at Victoria Park and served an eviction notice.

Two hours later, the police charged, beating and arresting fourteen protesters, dragging them through the mud to the paddy wagons, hauling away their tents. There's lots of video of the arrests on the web; here's one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMAelP2KnxQ&feature=related As the word went around the city, other supporters – including me – went down to join the occupiers, standing in the pouring rain, arms linked in a circle around the remaining tents, while the occupiers debated their next move. In the end they took down all the tents but one, leaving the last tent for the police, and went to a near by church to regroup. The next day saw an angry rally at the Grand Parade, and there, as this is written, the matter rests.

Silver Donald Cameron at Victoria Park on Remembrance Day. (Chris Majka)
Is this what our veterans fought for? Is this the way the city celebrates Remembrance Day – with handcuffs and truncheons and Mace for people who are simply sitting on their tents in the rain?

The Mayor says that the council unanimously made the decision to evict in an in-camera meeting on Tuesday, and after that it was “an operational issue” to be dealt with by the police. Nothing to do with him. But who chose the timing and the method? The councillors, the cops, the city staff, the Mayor? Silence.

By Sunday, the councillors were distancing themselves from the Mayor.

"The Mayor is using council as a scapegoat right now to support his decision making,” says Councillor Linda Mosher. “It was completely unnecessary to do that and council did not give that directive."

I believe her. This is a Mayor who spends a lot of time making bad decisions and initiating questionable actions, and hiding behind others when the brown stuff hits the blades. Earlier in 2011 Kelly was caught having agreed, in writing, and without authority, to guarantee loans totalling $5.6 million to the promoter of a rock concert to be held on the Halifax Common. The city is still on the hook for about $360,000, and the Mayor narrowly avoided a police investigation that would have been entirely appropriate.

But the loans fiasco wasn't his fault either. It was those confounded city staffers again. Tsk, tsk.

All of which raises another interesting question: why is it all right for the Mayor to risk a ton of public money for a private operator to occupy and tear up a city park – and it's not all right for citizens to camp peacefully in a city park, doing a lot less damage than a rock concert does?

On Monday, in a press conference, Police Chief Frank Beazley told the press that he made the decision to evict the occupiers by force – and to do it on Remembrance Day, because not many people would be around, and he didn't expect the protesters to leave peacefully. Really? All by himself? Knowing that it would cause a political uproar, he didn't seek the approval of the Mayor? Pah! No matter how you look at it, the responsibility circles back to Peter Kelly. Nor should we entirely exempt the councillors, who seem similarly addicted to secret meetings after which nobody has to take responsbility for anything.

Halifax deserves better than this.

In case you do not have the good fortune to live here, I should tell you a bit about Halifax, population about 300,000, a beautiful old seaport, the capital of Nova Scotia, the largest city on Canada's Atlantic coast. Halifax was established in 1749 on one of the biggest, safest deepwater harbours in the world. It was a pivot in the wars between the French and the English, and later between the English and the Americans. During the two World Wars, Halifax was the portal through which troops, ships, munitions and supplies poured across to Europe. It is home to Canada's principal naval and Coast Guard bases. It contains half-a-dozen universities and numerous research institutes, and it's the regional headquarters for innumerable agencies and companies. It is well supplied with parks and green spaces, and is said to have the largest urban forest in Canada. It is a city of scholars and shipwrights, legislators and law courts, broadcasters and boutiques, symphonies and scientists, art galleries and admirals and archbishops.

Linked to international events by its location, its history and the ocean, Halifax is a world city on an intimate scale, and it has sometimes had leadership adequate to its character. The very first national magazine article I ever wrote, in 1968, was a profile of the Mayor of Halifax, Allen O'Brien. A tough-minded businessman who was also a vice president of Canada's semi-socialist New Democratic Party, Mayor O'Brien marched in street protests against the Vietnam war. Was this appropriate for a municipal leader?

“We certainly have problems here at home, and I work on them every day,” he said – as I remember it; I'm quoting from memory. “But that is no excuse to ignore the plight of our neighbours – anywhere in the world.”

And what about his role as Mayor?

“The Mayor,” he said, “ has very little actual power – but he has the power to bring people together, to encourage action on matters that he considers important. He has the power to influence the public agenda. He has access to the press. And if you use those powers strategically, you can accomplish quite a bit.”

Young man acting as host at the November 12 rally (SDC)
Now just imagine. Imagine if Peter Kelly had that kind of awareness, that sense of direction, when he looked out the window in the middle of October. Imagine if he'd gone down there with his eyes and ears open. Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you do? When I asked those questions, I found I was talking with some very interesting people. An education graduate from St. Francis Xavier University who was playing a mad scientist in a children's theatre. A sustainability consultant. A young boutique farmer. A Mi'maq veteran. A postal worker. A filmmaker.

Okay (the Mayor might have said), let's not talk too much about things that are clearly national or provincial. What are the things that municipal governments actually can affect? Food? Maybe we need an innovative urban agriculture policy. What do you think such a policy might look like? Homelessness? Let me get a couple of property developers and someone from the province down here, and let's brainstorm a little. Tell me about youth unemployment. Say that again, will you – there's an organization in Winnipeg called Build that trains street people to do energy refits? Fascinating. Let's get someone from Winnipeg down here to talk about that. How can I reach them? (Answer: at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x4shcdZ8QI )

Anti-poverty activist Sharon Murphy addresses November 12 rally (SDC)
I'm pulling examples from my own experience and imagination, but you get the idea. What if the Mayor had treated the occupiers respectfully, as though they were actually citizens whose voices deserved to be heard, whose ideas might have merit, whose concerns might reflect the concerns of other citizens? What if the city had welcomed the arrival of new ideas, new insights, a passionate commitment to a better future? What if the Mayor had paused to reflect that the young people among them were not aliens or monsters – or bums or dregs or scum, as they have been called by adult commentators who should know better? These are our own children, brought up in Dartmouth and Moser River, Blandford and Fairview. What if the Mayor had contemplated the possibility that those young people probably arethe future?

What if the Mayor had acted not as a short-sighted enforcer of petty bylaws, but as the wise, patient leader of a functioning community?

If he had acted like that, Peter Kelly would have taught the occupiers that civic engagement actually works, that change is possible, that older people can and do welcome the energy of youth in the quest for a better tomorrow. Instead, he taught them the exact opposite – that their concerns are not of interest, that their involvement in politics is not welcome, that civic leaders cannot be trusted, that violence is just fine as long as it's the police who start the brawl.

If Peter Kelly had found a fresh, positive way to engage with Occupy Nova Scotia, the news would have gone around the world – just as the news of the eviction has gone around the world. Other cities that are also trying to figure out what to do next would have taken note. Halifax would have looked like the thoughtful, creative community that it is. And Peter Kelly would have been a hero, a prime contender for higher political office had he chosen to pursue that.

Like I said, history just tossed Kelly the political opportunity of a lifetime. He blew it. And we are all diminished by his failure.

The Skinny on Transportation Proposals

Transport de Clare is/was a society geared to provide wheelchair transport in the district of Clare, which is a district unto itself and not part of Digby. It has its own government and everything. It was "happy" fulfilling its mandate. Then last year its president declared to me and to anyone who would listen that he intended to not restrict himself to wheelchair service and intended to go out and service the general population like I do. Furthermore, he declared to me that he "WANTED" Digby, Digby Neck and Islands and Bear River. Further to that, he intended to remain subsidized, too.
He went out and plunked down a van in Bear River, as if claiming it for his own, and later admitted that he has only had a couple of calls. Even the owner of the anchor business in that community admits that there seems to be little interest in his service.
The Da Bus not for profit Society was started out of Digby Neck and area and produced and matched the same proposal to council as Trans de C. This society did not have an accessible van but declared that with approval of their proposal, they would go out and get one, with funding and corporate donations.
The municipal councilors did not want to know the numbers of need for a)an accessible van b)how many people were mobility challenged and needing the service. They did not want a study to find out.
This is yours and my money.
Two identical proposals.
One difference: one headed by a man. one spearheaded by a woman, with a board of mostly women.
A *Forum* is defined as a discussion of matters or issues. Look it up. T de C held a forum at which when two questions were allowed, and these two were against T de C, the questions were cut off abruptly and any further questions not allowed.
The "audience" was divided into groups, each at which one of his attendants was stationed. They produced a list of questions designed to elicit favourable responses to T de C. When someone in one group (I was there to witness this) asked if he could get a word in edgewise and ask a question and voice an opinion, the attendant said no, there were a set of questions that had to be followed and that was that.
Outside, at a break, I was able to get one question in to this attendant. I asked if any of the T de C drivers were hired. The answer was yes, they were drivers from Clare. I asked what they did in the areas they intended to service. The answer was oh they had a whole list of volunteers in those areas. They didn't need to...(and she cut herself off before saying "to pay them").
Trans de Clare has a municipal councillor on their board!
Da Bus would be providing THE SAME SUBSIDIZED RATES AS TRANSPORT DE CLARE. Da Bus is in the municipal structure of the Digby area. Any drivers would be hired here.

Go phone your councilor right now. You know this setup is wrong. Phone Maritza Adams, Jim MacAlpine, Linda Gregory.

Paul Hawken on World Events

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.
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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."

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.