Sustainability

A little bit off topic but not entirely. I just heard a commercial for the David Suzuki foundation on the radio. They're doing some pretty intense fund raising at Where will Santa live dot ca. People still talk about climate change and how the polar ice caps are receding. I can't believe Canada still mines and sells asbestos to India. We really should have more self respect than that.

People complain about the oils sands though there is big money to be made. It's still a scam when you think about who killed the electric car. That is what we should be focusing on. There's a lot of talk about sustainability these days. A concern for the environment which is not only good, it's imperative. A big shout out to Adriane Carr, former leader of the BC Green Party who finally got a seat on Vancouver's City council. Well done.

My personal environmental epiphany came when I went to a earth day presentation at my kid's high school. They showed a Youtube clip about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Seemingly plastic takes a really long time to break down and all the plastic that gets dumped in the ocean gets swept away by the swirling currents in the Pacific ocean which dumps it in one spot. As a result huge island of plastic have emerged in what environmentalists refer to as the great pacific garbage dump. I had no idea.

I has cruel effects on wildlife. Birds will eat small pieces of plastic thinking it's a bug. Only the plastic doesn't digest and won't pass through their system. As a result there have been many birds found dead because their stomach was full of undigested plastic and there was not room for real food to get through. The same thing with fish. It's really sad.

Although part of the problem is caused by countries that dump their garbage at sea, 80% of it is litter from land. All the litter on beaches, rivers and from boats contributes to this massive pacific garbage patch. We do need to stop our litter on the beaches and at sea.

Again the word sustainability keeps resurfacing. The old ways of sheer consumption won't cut it any more. Clear cutting the forests is irresponsible. Years ago I remember handing flyers outside the Arts Centre. Some kid starts to heckle me and shouts out how many trees had to get cut down to make you flyer? Without a seconds hesitation I shout back: How many trees had to be cut down the last time you went to the bathroom? The kid froze and had that real puzzled look on his face and turned to his girlfriend. She explained: Toilet paper. Everybody uses toilet paper and that cuts down trees. They didn't know what to say after that.

That's the thing, as much as we complain about it we are all consumers and all use paper products. Logging is essential. Yet clear cutting is not. In fact banning clear cutting is essential and promoting more realistic tree planting is essential. Which brings us to hemp paper. Hemp fibre is very strong.

I can't believe how popular hemp paper was back in the day. We used to have huge farms devoted to growing hemp to make rope and paper. It was totally sustainable. Then the petroleum industry pushed out the hemp farms for making rope and pulp and paper industry pushed out the hemp farms for paper. That was a tragedy. Just like how the oil companies killed the electric car. The free market is all about supply and demand. There's no reason we as consumers can't increase the demand for hemp paper. You don't get high off of hemp but hemp paper will indeed save the rain forests.

Oh and speaking of the oceans, we get most of our oxygen from the ocean surprisingly enough. Only there are these huge dead zones in the ocean where nothing grows like a desert on dry land. These dead zones are growing and we really need to address them. Fish can't survive in them and they are beginning to appear on the West coast. That huge oil spill in the gulf from the uncapped oil well made it much worse. Drift nets that drag along the ocean floor clear cut the ocean just like a forest. We really need to be more aware of the products we buy from drift nets that destroy everything in it's path. That is not sustainable harvesting of the ocean. Consumption based industry leaves nothing for subsequent generations. We need to start thinking about the next generation.

Occupy Vancouver Relocates

I am somewhat amused that the Occupy Vancouver protesters chose Robson Square for their next location after the court ordered them to move from the Art Gallery. I had walked under there a couple of weeks ago and noticed it was basically abandoned and that there was no ice in the rink there. Too bad. Bringing the ice back for the Olympics was a great idea. Maintaining that ice rink is a positive thing for the city. Yet they've been ordered to move again.

When I first heard there was going to be an Occupy Wall Street protest in Vancouver I asked where are they going to occupy? Vancouver doesn't have a stock exchange any more. The Art Galley? They could occupy that until Christmas and no one will notice or care. Unfortunately, protest bashing has become the popular political twist of late. You would think they let Conrad Black out of prison and he was the owner of the local papers again.

I am somewhat outraged by Christy Clark's comments in today's Vancouver Province. The headline read "Enough is Enough" and the article quoted Christy airhead as saying "I don't know what these folks stand for now." Why is that not surprising? Has she ever asked? She doesn't listen. She doesn't care. Yet trampling on lawful assembly is a horrific precedent for the nation.

No wonder Christy Clark wants to seize the opportunity to distract voters for the new disclosure about her own personal involvement in the BC Rail scandal along with Gordon Campbell. It wasn't just her brother, it was her too. How can she call a public inquiry into herself? This is way worse than Fantasy Gardens and way worse than fast ferries. She should be hanging her head in shame but no, she seizes the opportunity to kick the cat. She doesn't know what the protest is about? Maybe it's about her involvement in corrupt politics. We have seen that corruption in Wall street has infiltrated politics.

Someone wrote in to the Province slamming the mayor and Jim Chu for the Vancouver Riot. It wasn't their fault! They asked Christy Clark for more funding for police during the Stanley cup final and she giggled and said no. Then she had to audacity to rub it in their face and say but your concerns have been taken into consideration when we made our decision.

That is the inherent problem of our current political climate. Our pork barrel politicians only care about taking care of their lobbyists who contribute to their campaign. Big Unions or Big Corporations, it's all special interest. Only there are no big Unions any more. Only snakes in the grass like Buzz Hargrove trying to sell out their members so they can continue to exist and stay on the payroll.

In Canada, people have a protest and no one cares. The concerns aren't listened to. They just give them a little parade to express themselves then go on their merry way and do the exact opposite. At least in Egypt the government listens to the people. They protested demanding the government resign. Not necessarily the brightest thing when you don't have a plan as to who is going to be elected to replace him. Now they are protesting because after the government stepped down the military took over. Only the military promised to hand over the power in six months and that's not happening. Big surprise. Political opportunists exist everywhere.

Yet Egypt's military ruler says he is prepared to hold a referendum on transferring power to a civilian government immediately, following a massive demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square that saw tens of thousands turn out. That's a lot better than Stephen Harper or Christy Clark would do. Hold a referendum. Imagine that. Harper would rather spend millions of tax dollars on bogus advertising telling us how to vote rather than listen to the democratic will of the people. Our democracy is in peril.

There are two issues on the table: Tents and protests. I separate the two because although the Occupy Vancouver protest is clearly a political protest, the right to assemble in public places and petition the government for a redress of grievance is a God given unalienable right. No court has the authority to take that away from us. Period. Any court order that bans protesters instead of tents would violate the charter or rights and be an illegal order.

These are serious issues. A couple weeks ago I was standing outside the Vancouver courthouse with a sign that said Lawful Assembly is a Charter Right. The sheriff at the front desk comes out all agitated, reads my sign and says lawful assembly is a charter right but you can't stand there. I crinkle my brow and my nose and in disbelief say What? He said you can't picket here. You have to leave. Picket? I said. I'm not a member of a union. I'm not blocking any one's access to the courthouse. Then I look at his shoulder and notice he's a sheriff. I said if you get a police officer to arrest me for holding a sign that would be an illegal arrest and I will counter sue for lost wages. He gets even more agitated and said you can do what you want but I'm going to make a phone call. Fine I said as I held my position.

I was only going to stay there ten minutes but ended up staying 2 and a half hours just to see who would have the audacity to come and arrest me in violation of my Charter Right. No one showed up and I was furious. How dare he steal my Charter right? How dare he lie and claim that it is not my charter right to stand in a public place with a sign in a political protest. How dare he? People from the Occupy site just laughed and said you really think people won't try and convince you you don't have rights? I had no idea.

In the latest court application, Christy BC Rail Clark was asking for a permanent injunction and the Judge said such a move would be an inappropriate use of the law. No kidding. Speaking of the law, let's talk about generations of British Common law that refer to squatters rights. I was amazed in England many years ago that when squatters gathered they couldn't just move them without finding them a new location to move to. That was during the stone henge festival I visited back in the day. Before the Charter of Rights and before the British North America Act was introduced, our law was British common law. Generations of court decisions formed jurisprudence and became known as common law. Like it or not squatter's rights were part of that common law.

Yet tents and signs are separate. They can get a court order to remove tents but they cannot get a court order to ban a protest on public land. Such an order would be illegal and an act of war.

Insider Trading in Congress

Freddy already posted a link to this but I also just saw it on MSN news. Turns out there's a new book about insider trading in US Politics called Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer.

This past Sunday night, Steve Croft of “60 Minutes” exposed how U.S. Congressional critters cheat, lie and benefit from insider trading on defense contracts. He cornered former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with her investments gained from her inside knowledge of multi-billion dollar contracts.

Pelosi boasts multi-millionaire status along with over 200 other members of Congress. She responded that everything she had done as to investments was legal. In reality, she cheated before a law could be passed to stop the cheating.

Consequently, A long-ignored proposal to ban insider trading by members of Congress gained new traction this week following news stories that reinforced the public's low opinion of Congress.

Creating a direct conflict with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, fellow Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow has proposed legislation that would ban members of Congress from using privileged information obtained on Capitol Hill for insider trading on Wall Street.

It reminds me of that movie Distinguished Gentlemen with Eddy Murphy. I like the Duck Hunt scene. He plays a can man gone politician and admits that he did way more sh*t in office than he ever did on the street only the cons he pulled in office were legal. Somehow I think this applies to the Occupy Wall Street protest and continues to give that cause merit. Newt Gingrich reportedly received $1.8 million in consulting fees from Freddie Mac before it was bailed out by taxpayers.

David Johnston's Hunger strike for Occupy

Someone mentioned this guy at the open mike at the Vancouver Occupation and I was surprised I hadn't heard about the story. Seemingly one of the members of the Victoria Occupy has been arrested and has been on a three week hunger strike during his 60 day sentence. Prolific offenders don't even get that much jail time for property theft. He challenged the crown to get a judge to make a ruling on the right to sleep. God love him.

I have mixed feelings about camping in city parks. Homelessness is a genuine concern. Obviously the Occupy Wall Street is a political protest. Many argue that it's becoming a modern Woodstock yet I think the underlining message is important to heed. Corruption on Wall Street is serious. Hiding that with propaganda is self defeating. It raises our taxes and erodes our sovereignty. Pepper spraying protesters, clergy and seniors diminishes all of us. Dorli Rainey is 84 years old. Her photo is a “defining image” of the protest.

The Friendly Faces of Occupy Vancouver

This is a picture of Sean O’Flynn-Magee from the Occupy Vancouver site. He is the one named in the City's court injunction. I can't over stress the nonviolent nature and quest of the Occupy Vancouver movement. During the first week there was a guy silk screening T-shirts for free with his own designed logo. It was an open hand with Vancouver in the background and the caption "You can't shake someone's hand with a closed fist."

They just ran out of the more recent buttons in the information tent that said Vancouver Occupation with a big red heart on it. Day one we saw the peaceful meditation section. Now there's a tent devoted for that.



I went to the site yesterday and they had the sacred fire lit again and a wonderful young lady with an amazing voice was singing hymns for the sacred fire. Then she broke out in a chorus of O Canada to which many joined in. Then to my amazement she even sang Amazing Grace. It was wonderful.



Another talented musician pulled out the guitar and sang some stirring pop songs. Not everyone likes the same kind of music but everyone has their say. This is a political protest but it's much more than that. It's a movement. A movement of awareness, of unity, of listening, of activism and of nonviolence. It's a wonderful thing to see. Go down and check it out. Gandhi would be proud.

With regards to bylaws there are some real concerns and some manufactured concerns. We all know how the City or the Corporate drive like to use technical bylaws to shut down lawful assembly. A few years ago there was a heart wrenching story of a homeless women on a busy Vancouver street who had a candle in her make shift tent to keep warm on a cold winter's night. The candle tipped over and she tragically died in the fire. Very sad. No one wants that to happen on the Occupy Vancouver site. Especially when tents close together could pose a risk for the fast spread of fire if one started. No one wants that to happen.

Banning candles from inside tents is a good idea. Yet the Arts centre was the site of the candlelight vigil for Jack Layton. You can't really say no one is allowed to have a candle in the open. Yet that does make candles in tents harder to enforce. I went down one day with a propane barbecue and a whole bunch of hamburgers and food I bought. The place was crawling with City workers and they said I wasn't allowed to set up the barbecue even in an open area because of the propane flame so I took it all home. The spirit of the law and the letter of the law had become confused.

The key thing here is intent. Is the real intent personal safety or is the real intent shutting down a political protest and lawful assembly? This is a political protest not a safe injection site. The police do have the right to come in and make an arrest if anyone is doing hard drugs on site. A society without laws leads to chaos. No one on site wants anyone to come and steal their personal belongings. Enforcement of law and order is in everyones best interest. Abandoning them with the intent of giving them enough rope to hang themselves is not.

The whole point of the movement is to build a better society. That better society does include police. At first the place was crawling with young bright eyed enthusiastic police officers who were pleasant and polite. After using violence to put out the sacred fire which was safe, self contained in the centre of the open area, things changed. Now that Jim Chu has publicly pledged to shut the political protest down and has threatened physical violence against anyone who doesn't leave on their own accord people's backs are up against the wall. Even in Canada we have the legal right to defend ourselves against violence with equal force. Yet no one on site wants that. They truly are nonviolent pacifists who want to lobby for change.

Instead of focusing all our energy on the negative, trying to find reasons to shut it down, let's take a page of inspiration from the movement and take a look at some of the valid concerns the movement is addressing. Protecting the environment is one and facing corruption on Wall Street is another. We need to remember why Vancouver doesn't have a stock exchange anymore because that is a key focal point of the protest.

Self-indulgent Occupy protest

OK this guy has got to get off the crack. Everyday the same editorial only it keeps getting worse. Sounds more like an HST or a Smart Meter commercial.

Self-indulgent Occupy protest is the problem. That is so absurd it's offensive. I don't think anyone camped out at the Art Centre had anything to do with the real estate fraud or the hedge fund fraud or any of the other stock market frauds that caused the collapse that necessitated the obscene expenditure of tax dollars to bail them out.

The crisis was created by self indulgent white collar criminals. The bail out was given to self indulgent CEOs who kept their lavish bonuses at taxpayers expense. That is self indulgent. Some guy living in a tent protesting is not. The bizarre accusation is dishonest. "They're" the problem? I don't think any of those guys stole our pensions.

Then Jon Ferry embarks from absurdity to revel in nonsense. He claims their naivety is truly shocking. "Friends, it's not news that a minority have most of the money and power in the world," he blogged. "That's been true since, um, ever."

OMG Tyranny has always existed and the people have always resisted it. That's what happened when the Nobles said enough is enough and demanded equal rights in the Magna carta. That wasn't about the poor being jealous of the rich. It was about a group of people who stood up and asserted their unalienable rights.

That's what the American revolution was about. Equality, taxation without representation, democracy, self determination. We're getting taxation without representation now. They spend our tax dollars on things we don't want them to spend it on and raise our taxes to keep funding it. David Cameron's latest u turn is a prime example of the cancer that is eating away politics. Someone campaigns on a promise then breaks that promise when they get elected. That's breach of contract. Let us not forget the promise inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Heaven forbid Jon Ferry would cast the founding fathers aside as Communists. Claiming the Occupy Protesters are the problem is absurd. That's just like a rich British king who over taxes the people claiming the peasants are the problem. Well my friend the pheasants pay the taxes so the greedy can be self indulgent.

Donald Trump bragged about paying no income tax two years in a row. That is treason. I work. I have a job. I pay taxes. In fact I pay more taxes than Donald Trump. That is the problem. The rich should not be over taxed but they should pay some tax. Corporations shouldn't be over taxed but they should pay some tax. You can't get away with over taxing the pheasants forever. That system will eventually break.

Occupy Vancouver Day Two: The devil you know

Day two and more tents are up as the protest continues. There was a brief break in speakers for some song and dance. They played you say you want a revolution by the Beatles as well as a few other non violent activist songs. Turns out New York has a live stream for their protest and Julian Assange spoke at the London protest. An interesting thought from Toronto:



Here's another valid point coming out of New York:



Wall Street does need Adult Supervision. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is defending Ottawa's record on banking regulations. Banking regulation is not a dirty work. The right though the less red tape the better chances a free market has to succeed. In reality, deregulating the banks just paved the way for more investment fraud. That is the key.

I know every time we have a protest the Marxist Leninist party shows up and I know everybody thinks it's cool to wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt but we need to be mindful of how sometimes the devil we know as bad as it is, is better than the Devil we don't know. Let us remember Poland.

Hitler burned his own parliament building and blamed it on terrorist to gain public support to give him the powers of a chancellor. Then he burned a German radio station to gain public support for invading Poland.

Now let's remember how Poland was royally screwed. Lenin promised to help "liberate" Poland from the Fascists. He told the Polish underground resistance to attack from within and they would attack from the outside and outflank the Nazi enemy and liberate Poland.

Well the Polish resistance did indeed strike but Lenin held back until all the resistance were pretty much destroyed by the Nazi's. Then, when the underground was exterminated and the Nazi's weakened, Lenin sent his troops in to take over and bring Poland into bondage not into Liberation. That is an important part of history to remember. We need to address the fraud in Wall Street but we don't need to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Occupy Vancouver

What a wonderful day for a protest. The Occupy Vancouver Wall Street Protest went off without a hitch. Very peaceful. Very well represented.



Guy Faux was even there.



Interesting concerns about the legal liabilities of Corporations.



A lot of references to the Bull of Wall Street.



Even references to castrating the Bull.



A call to abolish the Federal Reserve.



Acorn was present.



A call to Water board Wall street.



An add about George Bush's upcoming visit to Surrey.



There was even a group of people meditating.



Tents are being set up for the occupation.



A stroll down memory lane past the old Vancouver stock Exchange. How ironic. Perhaps the focal point of the entire demonstration. Vancouver no longer has a stock exchange because they couldn't control the corruption. It was full of fake pump and dump stocks.



Cars broke out signs waiting for the march to pass.



Heart warming singers.



Talented musicians.



A call for money to be spent on housing instead of war.



An inspiring graphic design artist making free souvenir T-shirts. He was just accepting donations for more shirts. He ran out pretty fast but said he'd be there all week. If you bring your own shirt I'm sure he'd silk screen it right there for you. He designed the logo himself.

It says Occupy Vancouver with an open hand and the saying "You can't shake someone's hand with a clenched fist." A lot of calls for peaceful demonstrations and it was very peaceful indeed. A great start to an important message. Oh yeah, the 911 truth movement was well repressed too. Imagine that.