Overall results Liberals 49, NDP 36, Greens 0, As percent, Liberals 46.2 NDP 42,06 Green 8.1
In 8 ridings, had the Green vote gone NDP, the result would have been NDP 44 seats , Liberals 41 seats, thus an NDP government. But maybe a third of the Green vote comes from people who might not support the NDP, such as disgruntled left-liberals or otherwise apolitical enviros. In that case only four ridings, Saanich, Oak Bay, Comox and Vernon would have seen NDP victories and the Liberals would have had 45 seats to the NDP's 40. Thus one cannot blame the Greens for splitting the NDP vote.
What is a problem is that the progressive vote is divided and the majority of the population – at least 50.16%, are progressives and are dominated by a reactionary minority.
Given this political division, one should not make too much of the political failings of either the Greens or the NDP, while such weaknesses and errors do exist, in this instance, they are not the major problem. The important failing of both parties is the failure to come to some kind of agreement and defeat the right. The problem, is of course ultimately structural, the undemocratic first past the post system (FPTP) and the failure to introduce a proportional ballot system such as they have in most of Europe. This system allows different left wing parties to exist, gain seats and form coalition governments. However, given the lack of a more democratic voting system in BC, it is incumbent on both parties to work together in some fashion and keep the piratizers and corp[orate welfare scammers at bay.
Seats where a Green-NDP majority exists.
*Saanich North Green - NDP total = 54% Liberal 45, NDP, 44, Grn 11
*Oak Bay 53% Lib 46.6, NDP, 44.5, Grn, 9
* Comox, 51% Lib 47.6, NDP, 42.5, Grn, 8.5
Burnaby-Mougheed 51.5%, Lib 49, Ndp 44.4, Grn 6.6
Burnaby North, 51.5, Lib 48.7, NDP, 44.4, Grn, 6.9
Similkameen, 42, Lib 38, NDP, 32.8 Grn 9.4
Penticton 46.5 Lib 44, NDP, 31, Grn 15.5
*Vernon 49%, Lib 37.7, NDP, 31.7, Grn, 16.5
The STV referendum also failed to pass. This means we are still stuck with the undemocratic FPTP system. But then the STV was highly complicated and people did not understand it and it was even a second grudging choice for the people who supported it. The fact that such a system was proposed in the first place instead of a proportional ballot system – which everyone understands and whose advantages are obvious – has always made me smell a rat. I suggest that it was proposed as a form of counter-insurgency against the demand for greater grass roots democracy. Give the people a weird complicated alternative, they will reject it and democratic reform will be off the adgenda for another generation.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
As the US Descends Ever Further into the Third World.
After the USSR collapsed it was discovered that the Soviet system was like a Third World country with a First world military. The US seems to be following in that direction as its ranking in terms of health, child mortality etc sinks ever lower. See http://dasnotesfromunderground.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-are-we-doing.html
Monday, May 11, 2009
Bank Stress Tests Show Need for Ignored Banking Law
Last week, I made follow-up phone calls to several of Ohio's federal elected officials -- following up on the Open Letter calling on these esteemed public officials to demand that the federal government enforce the Prompt Corrective Action Law.
Calls were made to the offices of US Senators Brown and Voinovich and US Representatives Sutton, Ryan, Kucinich, LaTourette, Boccieri, Kaptur, and Fudge. This law appears to be a hot potato -- no one wants to touch it.
The law mandates that severely undercapitalized banks be taken over. Once under public control:
- their toxic assets can be wiped out,
- their CEOs can be fired,
- they can be broken up,
- they could even be transformed into worker owned enterprises
Please contact your US Rep. and US Sens. Brown and Voinovich. Tell them to demand that this law be enforced.
------------
Public News Service-OH
May 11, 2009
Ohio Group: Bank Stress Tests Show Need for Ignored Banking Law
Cleveland, Ohio ˆ It‚s been on the books for 18 years, but some experts say the recent lack of enforcement of the Prompt Corrective Action Law is costing the government and taxpayers billions of dollars. An effort is underway to draw the attention of Ohio Congressional leaders to the law, which mandates that insolvent or severely under-capitalized institutions regulated by FDIC be taken into receivership.
The stress test results recently released by the government showed that despite federal bailouts, many of the country's largest banks still need more money. Lois Romanoff with the American Friends Service Committee of Northeast Ohio says the situation could have been avoided had policymakers enforced the federal Prompt Corrective Action Law. Instead, she says, the government essentially has let big bankers loose.
"They have a lot of money to pay for whatever they want. They want to be in charge, and they are, and we are suffering mightily from it. It's very frightening that we are still not on the right track."
Romanoff, who serves on the group's Economic Justice Committee, contends that by not taking over insolvent banks, the Bush and Obama administrations violated the law and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars through bailouts. The stress tests found that 10 bank holding companies, including Ohio-based Fifth-Third and Keycorp, will need to raise about $75 billion combined to survive the current recession.
Romanoff says a system already is in place to deal with insolvent banks, and it doesn't require a bailout.
"Banks fail every day in this country. We know how to handle it and we know how to protect investors. The FDIC comes in and does it quietly and efficiently."
A number of organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, are asking lawmakers to put a stop to big bank bailouts so federal budget priorities can be focused on investing in jobs, health care, education, alternative energy and infrastructure.
Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/8859-1
The broadcaster version of the story can be viewed by clicking here: http://www.newsservice.org/pdfStory.php?StoryGroup=8859&stories=1
---
To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove@publicnewsservice.org and put the word "remove" in the subject line.
Calls were made to the offices of US Senators Brown and Voinovich and US Representatives Sutton, Ryan, Kucinich, LaTourette, Boccieri, Kaptur, and Fudge. This law appears to be a hot potato -- no one wants to touch it.
The law mandates that severely undercapitalized banks be taken over. Once under public control:
- their toxic assets can be wiped out,
- their CEOs can be fired,
- they can be broken up,
- they could even be transformed into worker owned enterprises
Please contact your US Rep. and US Sens. Brown and Voinovich. Tell them to demand that this law be enforced.
------------
Public News Service-OH
May 11, 2009
Ohio Group: Bank Stress Tests Show Need for Ignored Banking Law
Cleveland, Ohio ˆ It‚s been on the books for 18 years, but some experts say the recent lack of enforcement of the Prompt Corrective Action Law is costing the government and taxpayers billions of dollars. An effort is underway to draw the attention of Ohio Congressional leaders to the law, which mandates that insolvent or severely under-capitalized institutions regulated by FDIC be taken into receivership.
The stress test results recently released by the government showed that despite federal bailouts, many of the country's largest banks still need more money. Lois Romanoff with the American Friends Service Committee of Northeast Ohio says the situation could have been avoided had policymakers enforced the federal Prompt Corrective Action Law. Instead, she says, the government essentially has let big bankers loose.
"They have a lot of money to pay for whatever they want. They want to be in charge, and they are, and we are suffering mightily from it. It's very frightening that we are still not on the right track."
Romanoff, who serves on the group's Economic Justice Committee, contends that by not taking over insolvent banks, the Bush and Obama administrations violated the law and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars through bailouts. The stress tests found that 10 bank holding companies, including Ohio-based Fifth-Third and Keycorp, will need to raise about $75 billion combined to survive the current recession.
Romanoff says a system already is in place to deal with insolvent banks, and it doesn't require a bailout.
"Banks fail every day in this country. We know how to handle it and we know how to protect investors. The FDIC comes in and does it quietly and efficiently."
A number of organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, are asking lawmakers to put a stop to big bank bailouts so federal budget priorities can be focused on investing in jobs, health care, education, alternative energy and infrastructure.
Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/8859-1
The broadcaster version of the story can be viewed by clicking here: http://www.newsservice.org/pdfStory.php?StoryGroup=8859&stories=1
---
To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove@publicnewsservice.org and put the word "remove" in the subject line.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Declaring the Times on Parliament Hill
Declaring the Times on Parliament Hill: April 29, 2009
by Kevin D. Annett
by Kevin D. Annett
I committed treason last week, in front of a throng of RCMP and CSIS goons outside what is called the Canadian Parliament.
I've had it, you see. I've had it with something called "the Crown" getting away with mass murder, fraud and land theft. I've had it with its partner in crime, the Christian churches, absolving themselves of the torture and slaughter of little kids in their "residential schools".
So I figure it's time to get rid of the whole mess.
Picking up the megaphone from a Mohawk elder who stood with me and a score of others, I shouted directly at the Mounties,
"You men are defending murderers and pedophiles. You're standing on stolen land, awash with rivers of blood. You have to ask yourselves what you're defending, and who is profiting from what you do, and who is suffering from it. I tell you, it's time for a new nation, a republic. We need to get rid of the Crown and create a republic where we can finally be equal with the native nations."
I paused, and added,
"I just committed treason here. So arrest me! You say you want to bring me in for questioning. So here I am! But I have some questions for you, too: like why you refuse to bring known criminals to justice for the murder of 50,000 aboriginal children!"
None of the cops responded. They even looked vaguely embarrassed. But the sightseers seemed shocked.
It was like that on April 29 in Ottawa, on the illegally occupied and never-treatyed Algonquin land where Parliament perches.
It was the same day that a guy who calls himself the Pope was pretending to be sorry for what his church did to innocent Indian children, and dishing out lies to his deluded followers. A bunch of us thought it was a good day to respond.
The sun smiled on the twenty or so of us, mostly Mohawk traditionalists from Kahnawake, as we crossed the river into Ottawa from the Quebec side. Under a banner that declared, "All the Children Need a Proper Burial", and held aloft by three Mohawk children, our little army descended on three of the architects of genocide in Canada: Indian Affairs, the "Supreme Court", and Parliament itself.
Our first stop, at Indian Affairs, featured us trying to speak to manicured ex-Indians in fancy clothes who gaped at us from behind their office windows, or hurried past us lest their white masters spotted them listening. Two of them stood in the doorway and smirked at us. But many others stared soberly at the words on our banner, and at the little ones clutching it.
It was these children who drew all the quiet stares all along our route. The kids led us down the street and over the bridge. Police cleared the way for us, lights flashing, as we were accompanied too by so many spirits.
"Assholes!" yelled a white cab driver at us, as Stuart Miyoh of the Mohawk Traditional Council exhorted those nearby to remember the disappeared children. The silence that echoed back at us was deep, as from a grave.
"Truth" and "Justice" were the words emblazoned on the edifice of the Supreme Court as we fanned out on its steps. Taking them at their words, one of our people, a young native woman, said through the bullhorn,
"All we want is justice, and not to be criminalized whenever we defend our sacred mother earth. But this court makes us the wrongdoers and lets logging companies rape our mother. We'll never get justice in Canada's courts."
I asked her for the bullhorn and began to name the names of the judges who had been accused of pedophilia in Canada. One cop gawked at me, shocked.
"That's the bravest thing I've ever seen" the woman told me, as the cops looked troubled. But one of them approached me as we neared Parliament and said,
"People can hear you better if you're right up on the steps".
Smiling, I felt the whole shaky edifice crumble a bit. That's when I launched into my call for a new republic in front of the phalanx of mounties.
Stuart was busy speaking to a group of high school students on a Parliamentary tour, declaring,
"You kids should know that people your age were murdered every day in the Indian residential schools, 50,000 of them! Learn what your country is really like. Read hidden from history dot org and stop supporting murderers in high places ..."
An outraged teacher began shooing the dumb struck students away from us, his arms stretched out like a panicking mother hen. But the crowds were forming around us by then, and for a half hour we stood and waved our banner and showed the country its lies and its crimes.
I was flying by then. During one of my speeches, when I got to the part about the Crown being a fictitious body with no jurisdiction over us, one of the bald-headed suits in shades with a wire in his ear sauntered over to me and said that I could expect to receive a warrant for my arrest soon.
And so it goes.
Near the end, we all decided to return to the same spot in even greater numbers on June 11, the first anniversary of the Hollow Apology of Steven Harper to survivors of the residential schools genocide.
Carry it on.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Banks Own Congress
"And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
- United State Senator Dick Durbin
When one of the most powerful members of Congress, a ranking member of the majority party, confesses to not being so powerful, we need to take notice.
What exactly does Durbin mean by banks “owning” Congress and what are its implications?
When it comes to politics, “ownership” can take many forms:
1. Lobbying elected officials. Corporations that received federal TARP bailout funds spent over $77 million lobbying federal elected officials in 2008. Lobbying can take many forms — from direct meetings with legislators and/or their aides to influence legislation, to sponsorship of “fact-finding” junkets to exotic locations for elected officials, to organizing groups/campaigns to influence legislators.
2. Providing campaign contributions (I prefer the more accurate term “investments”) to elected officials. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) reports that TARP bailout corporations in 2008 made $37 million in campaign investments in 2008.
3. Having your own people in political decision-making roles. The list under Bush and now Obama of former big bankers now writing the laws and/or supposedly “regulated” bank actions is led by none other than former Goldman Sachs executive Timothy Geithner, who now heads the Treasury Department. So many former Goldman Sachs execs occupied key financial roles in the Bush and now Obama administrations that the company is affectionately referred to by many as “Government Sachs.”
What are the implications of all this?
1. Money. CPR states the combined $114 million in lobbying and campaign contributions/investments in 2008 yielded $295.2 billion from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to 26 mega corporations. That translated to a 258,449 percent return. Not a bad investment! And there’s more coming. An additional several trillion dollars in loans and other federal guarantees have been made to the banks — many to back up their so-called “assets” that represents in many cases multiples pieces of paper backing up the same real tangible true asset. It’s a financial mirage in which we taxpayers and our descendents will be paying off for generations.
2. Protection from regulation or control. The mega banks have turned to their friends inside the administration to prevent major regulations from being enacted. AIG employees still received their bonuses. Banks were not forced to use TARP money to expand credit. No audits of banks receiving bailout funds has been passed. There have been no laws calling for a return of misused bailout funds. Legislation to protect home owners from foreclosures through the courts was foiled. Enforcement of the Prompt Corrective Action Law (mandating public control of insolvent banks) is nonexistent. The rules governing “stress tests” of banks are (re)written in by banks The list is long.
Ownership indeed has its privileges.
Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13464
TARP Recipients Paid Out $114 Million for Politicking Last Year
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/tarp-recipients-paid-out-114-m.html
- United State Senator Dick Durbin
When one of the most powerful members of Congress, a ranking member of the majority party, confesses to not being so powerful, we need to take notice.
What exactly does Durbin mean by banks “owning” Congress and what are its implications?
When it comes to politics, “ownership” can take many forms:
1. Lobbying elected officials. Corporations that received federal TARP bailout funds spent over $77 million lobbying federal elected officials in 2008. Lobbying can take many forms — from direct meetings with legislators and/or their aides to influence legislation, to sponsorship of “fact-finding” junkets to exotic locations for elected officials, to organizing groups/campaigns to influence legislators.
2. Providing campaign contributions (I prefer the more accurate term “investments”) to elected officials. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) reports that TARP bailout corporations in 2008 made $37 million in campaign investments in 2008.
3. Having your own people in political decision-making roles. The list under Bush and now Obama of former big bankers now writing the laws and/or supposedly “regulated” bank actions is led by none other than former Goldman Sachs executive Timothy Geithner, who now heads the Treasury Department. So many former Goldman Sachs execs occupied key financial roles in the Bush and now Obama administrations that the company is affectionately referred to by many as “Government Sachs.”
What are the implications of all this?
1. Money. CPR states the combined $114 million in lobbying and campaign contributions/investments in 2008 yielded $295.2 billion from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to 26 mega corporations. That translated to a 258,449 percent return. Not a bad investment! And there’s more coming. An additional several trillion dollars in loans and other federal guarantees have been made to the banks — many to back up their so-called “assets” that represents in many cases multiples pieces of paper backing up the same real tangible true asset. It’s a financial mirage in which we taxpayers and our descendents will be paying off for generations.
2. Protection from regulation or control. The mega banks have turned to their friends inside the administration to prevent major regulations from being enacted. AIG employees still received their bonuses. Banks were not forced to use TARP money to expand credit. No audits of banks receiving bailout funds has been passed. There have been no laws calling for a return of misused bailout funds. Legislation to protect home owners from foreclosures through the courts was foiled. Enforcement of the Prompt Corrective Action Law (mandating public control of insolvent banks) is nonexistent. The rules governing “stress tests” of banks are (re)written in by banks The list is long.
Ownership indeed has its privileges.
Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13464
TARP Recipients Paid Out $114 Million for Politicking Last Year
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/tarp-recipients-paid-out-114-m.html
Media Interviews on Prompt Corrective Action Law
Greg Coleridge will be interviewed on Akron and Cleveland radio stations this week on the Prompt Corrective Action Law.
Wednesday, May 6, 10:05 am
The Matt Patrick Show, WHLO 640 AM, Akron
Call in!
Friday, May 8, sometime between 4pm – 5 pm,
America’s Work Force
Host – Ed “Flash” Ferenc, WERE 1490 AM, Cleveland
Background on the law
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/04/william_k_black_on_the_prompt.html
Wednesday, May 6, 10:05 am
The Matt Patrick Show, WHLO 640 AM, Akron
Call in!
Friday, May 8, sometime between 4pm – 5 pm,
America’s Work Force
Host – Ed “Flash” Ferenc, WERE 1490 AM, Cleveland
Background on the law
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/04/william_k_black_on_the_prompt.html
Monday, May 4, 2009
“Communism” vs. Communism
The Fundamentals of Communism - The Case of the Czech Republic
By Milan Valach
The current power elites’ greatest fear is represented by the revitalization of the left-wing ideal. That’s why they keep reminding the public about the repulsive practices of the Soviet Union and its controlled countries.
Every attempt at its renewal has to firstly cope with the practices of the ruling communist parties in the so-called eastern block. It was these parties that announced their rule as truly communist. I will try to show that this statement was and still is not true. That is why the discussion about the essence of communism is still very much alive. It is topical because we still really don’t understand what communism was, and because of efforts to use one interpretation or other of the past for current purposes. Every attempt to objectively examine the totalitarian past fails immediately if it’s not based on clarifying the concepts that are being worked with and if ideologies, including their historical background, are not separated from the practice of them. Ideologies must also be separated from those who - rightly or not - called themselves their implementers. In the case of communism it is therefore important to separate its ideology, as it was gradually created in the environment of west-European philosophy and mainly its most in-depth Marxist version, from the practices of the political regime that arose in Russia after 1917. Whether this Leninist-Stalinist political model was in fact carried out according to Marx’s philosophy, or whether it had completely different roots, is to be examined only after the aforementioned is thoroughly clarified. Preconceived judgment that already knows the “answer” has nothing to do with science and testifies to ideological prejudice, or even to the blindness of a persons thinking.
Article continues HERE
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