promises, promises

If by 'open' he meant open for business and willing to be bought... and by accountable, you'd better have a big bank 'account' if you want to be 'able' to afford the new higher costs for FOI, requests, then for once the 5 Martini Marionette hasn't been lying through his teeth.

Well you do have a sense of humor.....

Stump quoted,

"By the end of the next four years, we will have the most open and accountable government in the country." Gordon Campbell

I know now you DO have a sense of humor, really, I'm not being sarcastic. I like the "5 Martini Marionette" monicker, too!
Do I have to send you royalties if I should use it somewhere?

aw shucks

thanks and feel free to use it whenever and wherever applicable!!

Don't worry, be Happy

5 Martini Marionette? C'mon, Stump, ya gotta admit that's a fun way to run a government !!

And about this here welfare thing....Ya gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, dontcha?

welfare

I have been saying Gordon Campbell is organized crimes best partner in the drug world and articles like this show why. Allowing this to continue is resulting in a province that while hosting the olypmics, will also show a province, and a country by association, that has worked overtime to create homelessness and all the extras that come with poverty like addictions. Congratulations people of B.C.! When the world comes they will see a city, province, country that serves as a great example as to how Neo-liberal ideologies are a terrible blight on our world. To all those who voted for this guy, thanks. I, as well as all Canadians should be really proud of you all.

In a pig's eye...

The continuing story of the deliberate neoconazi unravelling of the briefly lived, if relative success that was the regulated State Capitalism of the immediate post WW2. (Briefly known as the Welfare State.) It was really the death knell of capitalism, of course, that relative success anyway.

It could not be allowed to continue because, as it rolled out and evolved, gave increased relative power to unions and the broader working class, including the impoverished, its enhanced levels of equality and the logic of rising expectations led inexorably away from capitalism over the long run nonetheless. For the intrinsic essence of capitalism, of course, is incompatible with egalitarianism, and restrictions on ruling class power and privilege. The system is in fact defined by its inequalities and especially "class" inequalities.

Ruling class "ownership and management rights" within the economy establish its rule, and the working class should do as it is told and be grateful for whatever its class betters allow to it. Let The Market Decide. It was the great rediscovery of the Neoconazis in our time, and why the ruling class has turned to it as the model governing ideology everywhere.

Besides, "regulated" State Capitalism was meant only to be a temporary sop to salve the revolutionary dangers which lingered in the aftermath of the Great Depression anyway, and in the face of a returning working class soldiery from Europe, armed with military experience and knowledge, and with their own expectations, upon the conclusion of WW2.

They needed to be "bought off" and were, over time.

Which is still okay though, from my perspective, because in the Great Unravelling of "regulated capitalism" that is this Neoconazi Period, such as we see the evidence of in this Tyee article here, is the emergence of a new, likely more revolutionary/transformation inducing period nonetheless. Along all the main broad social, economic and environmental fronts really, the limits of the system's development potential have been reached and are being made clear, extremely painfully in many cases, to everyone outside the ruling class cocoon.

Continued Next Post

in a pigs eye 2...

From Previous Post...

Most folks alive today don't remember it of course, but we, my kind and society have been here before.

I remember my dad, in one of his prophetic moments, to which he was prone, early in the postwar, when I was really just a lad, saying to me, "The leopard has really not changed its spots, son. They will wait until everyone has forgotten, then they will go back to the way it was again, and create another "Depression" and another "Great War". After which he would almost invariably warn me that, "The working class is really its own worst enemy." About which he turned out to be right too.

And no, he was not a "revolutionary", just a "kind of" working class Christian.

So, you see, this Neoconazi Period, it's really what such as I have been expecting though, and waiting for, for a long time. :-) "Keep it up!", like I say, you wingnut goofs. We couldn't do it without ya. :-)

Only I ain't a Christian, and I am disinclined to keep turning cheeks like he did. :-)

No matter where

they are elected, paleo-cons (and let's face it, these are not 'small l' liberals) are faced with the same problem: the gap between their ideology and reality. So they lie through their teeth.

Eventually reality catches up with them and they are wiped out in the polls (examples being the late Progressive Conservatives federally, the provincial Socreds in the west, and the Saskatchewan conservative party under Grant Devine), but, like dog feces in the spring, they reappear as the snows of memory melt with another name and the same conceit and arrogance: that there is a simple solution to any problem, and that they are the ones who understand it.

I wonder how they are going to spin the ongoing global banking and pension collapse? (Who did you think are holding mortgage backed paper... all over the western world?)

Defining the enemy

Canis Latrans, very likely your father was fully familiar with Marx's writings, and my guess is that he was influenced by his father who also very likely was a Socialist in the "Wobbly" tradition.

Very likely, especially if they were unionists, they had attended study groups and well knew the difference between Capitalism and Fascism.

What is not generally known today is that the ruling elites in our Western World also well knew the difference, and that at that time they strongly advocated Fascist theory. In fact, they actively supported and donated materiel to the Fascists under Franco, collaborating with him and the Fascists Hitler and Mussolini in the prosecution of the Spanish Civil War. (!936 – 39) Wiki gives a good rundown :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War .
Some 32,000 men from all over the world of your father and grandfather’s age, some 1300 from Canada - the McKenzie-Papineau Brigade.- volunteered to fight against Franco's Fascists (who were CLEARLY identified as such).

Franco won, and shortly afterward, after overcoming Fascist opposition in Parliament, Churchill declared war against Germany and Italy. So we went to war and in the war propaganda which I well remember,
the enemy’s ideology was clearly identified as Fascism

After we defeated the Fascists, the joke was, when a local business man was asked why he had supported Mussolini’s Fascist business model, he would answer with a grin “He made the trains run on time”.

But because of war propaganda, Fascism had become a dirty word, and we hadn’t a synonym for it until Eisenhower, in his warning of it coined the term “Military-Industrial Complex”. That term now seems passé to us, and so we are now left with the original term “Fascism”. Sorry, “neocon” is just too indeterminate and in-groupy.

And now the Fascists have crawled full out of their fetid hiding places once again, decrying “government intervention” while cynically manipulating government and its laws to their own ends.

Stupidly attacking “Capitalism” is an empty threat, since Capitalism is NOT a philosophical construct, it is merely an economic tool. In our own ways we are all capitalists. And what would we replace it with anyway – Barter? All we can do is modify the rules under which the capitalist system operates. One method is via an authoritarian Fascism in which the Capitalist rules, and the other is a Democraticaly-driven Socialism in which we rule. The choice is pretty simple.

But destroy Capitalism? Even if it was possible, it's crazy to even suggest it, since most people see Capitalism (and correctly so) as the goose laying the golden egg – and you want to kill it?? Wouldn’t your goal be better defined as wanting to see that egg shared a bit more fairly and the goose kept from destroying the whole garden in the process?

We're out to kill Fascism, not Capitalism.

Response to ME2

Interesting proposition, Me2. Much of which I agree with, but differing with the central conclusions you wind up drawing. Really, it is the classic dividing line between the more reformist minded social democrat and those of us who would opt for a model so radically "reformed", particularly the economy, whose priorities it serves, how it is day to day managed and strategically controlled, and by whom. Which certainly does not exclude the need to transform "the state", to the degree that there will remain, for a greater or lesser time, a need for it-, opening it and society up to greater direct "lower class strata" participation and direction, while "restricting" or sharply "circumscribing" any lingering old ruling class influence. (Such as occurred in the transition from the landed nobility class rule as marked feudalism, in favour of the rising merchant/industrial class as ushered in capitalism in the events leading up to its great "industrial revolution" and all that has followed.)

There is as you say, of course, but one economy. But what defines its particular character is the class structure and governance forms as determine its purpose, who benefits primarily, and who owns, directs and otherwise controls it. And its that which, I suggest, needs to change, and for which I advocate-, as distinct from the more purely social democratic, class collaborationist mindset as characterizes such as say, the NDP or the British Labour Party.

In short, as capitalism returns to its earlier historical roots, which, known to me, all the official social democratic models have played their collaborationist part in wittingly or unwittingly facilitating, I similarly advocate for a "lessons learned" return to the earlier more radical working class models and political positions calling for the radical transformation of the economy and capitalist state. Over the course of which, such as will transform its ruling power and management/representation systems to a sufficient degree that we can say that the old "capitalist" ruling class model no longer exists, but something "qualitatively" different and new.

And finally, of course, it is also the oft repeated social democratic mantra that anything other than the ruling class managed and controlled electoral system is "authoritarian" model driven. Whereas I would say that a truer "democratic" transformation model does not necessarily exclude ANY of the ways by which serious change is brought about, including mass street actions of the citizenry, and as is tactically and strategically useful, working class occupation and takeovers of the plant, factories and other major facilities of the economy.

Continued next post..

Response to Me2 II

Continued from previous post.

It is my suggestion that there is no "one true path" to the transformation of society and the economy, but that all roads lead to Rome. (Even "offical" social democracy, in ways perhaps unintended by it.) And all means as are necessary, are necessary, plain and simple-, which is not necessarily an advocacy of violence, merely the people's right to defend themselves, intrinsic to any serious democratic model.

Capitalism is not an absolute, as you suggest. It has particular features/characteristics which once radically altered and/or transformed, changes what is into something else quite different. The inability to understand all this, or the refusal, has been and is the great historic failing, I suggest, of so-called social democracy. Hence it shrinks from the task of seriously confronting the ruling class system of capitalism, even as it slips and slides toward fascism.

Alter who (the class structure) owns and controls the economy and you alter the nature of the beast and all the controlling State and other elements as are built upon and around it. A much improved democracy then in fact becomes only possible. My view. You may see it as "foolish", but certainly I do not. Au contraire. :-)

What's your pleasure??

So, CL, you do not think that Fascism and Socialism are the two primary expressions of Capitalism.

OK then, tell us what you would do otherwise. Your concluding paragraph suggests you might instead prefer Communism:

Or perhaps Socialism after all?

a question

By mentioning, Fascism, Socialism, Capitalism and Communism in the same breath are we not to some extent confusing/mixing economic systems with political systems?

My understanding is that capitalism is a system of economics, not a system of governance.

There are, after all, capitalist dictatorships right?

Quote:most people see

If I felt I'd never have a chance to make a golden omelette because of a rigged system... I'd be happy to settle for a good meal of roast fowl.

Capitalism hasn't really succeeded that well in my mind, except in the creation of consumer goods and its ancillary waste. Democracy is possible under communism, we just haven't tried it yet.

Any of the achievements of Western capitalism could also have been done with other economic systems, except for creating a subset of super-wealthy sociopaths.

I see some Saudi bought himself an new Airbus today? WTF? There's kids starving and some douche living large off the natural resources that should be collectively owned by his nation thinks he needs his own jumbo jet?

Crucify the prick. That's a crime against humanity IMO.

Well actually Me2...

I do not attach any label to my positions. That fascism is the most extreme "bad cop" face of capitalist governance, in my view of the phenomena. What has passed for so-called socialism on the other hand, here and elsewhere, is more really "official" "Liberal or NDP Partyism", if I may. These latter scarcely distinguishable two being the "other", good time, when the system is working well enough and secure "good cop" "other faces" of capitalism.

All share, however, a desire to serve the ruling class interests of capitalism.

Rather, I talk about who owns, controls, manages or otherwise directs the strategic direction and result of the economy. That economy currently being under the direction of the ruling class of capitalists, with the "official" state governing assist of one or the other "parties" to capitalism above, including the so-called "socialists", or more accurately social democrats, and its "more formal than real" system of so-called democracy. (Conservatives are but "fascist-lites", or the precurors to... in my perceptions.)

I, on the other hand, give scarcely a twaddle for these highly formalized and ritual games of capitalism and its governance. And I put not a name to it, given the historical record of all the countering "isms" even, to here in time at least. My concern is with, who rules, controls, day to day manages, and otherwise determines the strategic direction of the economy. Is it a narrow and privileged ruling class, or is it to be the other lower and relatively lower "working" class elements of society allied with other populist community interests and strata, such as say the middle class intelligentsia, and such interests as, for example, those with real environmentalist, womens rights and other interests?

This issue resolved at the level of the "economy" and a true "democratic" system of governance in place there, I suggest, leads in its dynamic to the resolution of all the other "democratic" state and other "governance" issues.

Certainly I do not advocate for the "state capitalism" systems of either the old USSR or of current so-called "communist" China. And your suggestion that I do so is either a misread, or a deliberate attempt to "witch hunt". (For which social democrats are again also well renowned.)

My understanding is that capitalism is a system of economics, not a system of governance.

There are, after all, capitalist dictatorships right? Wrote Stump.

Stump, on the final hand, cuts far closer to the bone than yourself, in my view. :-)

One point further...

Actually, in my view, the communists AND the social democrats both made the same mistake in, despite the formers words certainly, coming to the same essential conclusion that it was all about the "state". Whereas Marx certainly knew it was really "...all about the economy, stupid!"

It's who, what social class, not formal vanguard party forces control the economy that determines everything built there upon, including the state and the character of the democracy extant or absent there. It is their control of the economy in fact, within capitalism, that determines that ruling class's control of ALL the other social institutions of society, including the so-called "democracy" of the formal "electoral" system. Which is why whatever "party" is in power within capitalism, whatever their "promises" or best intentions, in the electoral process, once in formal power, actually bends to serving the ruling class interests of the capitalists and their marketplace. (Which even they, the capitalists, from time to time differ over, more or less conservatively, liberally, or even, shock of shocks, social democratically.)

It's about the economy, stupid, and who/what body of folks/class controls the wealth generated there. Everything else is an afterthought that flows therefrom. designed to maintain the continuation of that class power. Working class and broader community power over the economy will change everthing,and yet doubtless operate similarly.

Merely different parties in power within the "state", especially elitist "vanguard" oriented parties such as the Communists fancied themselves, results only in the creation of a new "ruling class" over time, because they actually themselves continue to cut the working class itself out of power, over either the economy or the state. Instead of the capitalists ruling over the working class, they, the Communists "become a new ruling class" rule over them instead. (Which is the primary conclusion to be drawn from the experiences of both the Communist Parties, in the old USSR and current day China.Whereas the so-called reformist "statist" notions of social democracy and others (greens) within capitalism, merely results in the continuation of status quo capitalism, in the final analysis.)

It is the job of the new radicals/revolutionaries in our time, to cut through the crap.

As I understand it, when

As I understand it, when Marx composed his Dialectic, he made the accurate prediction that the economic system of Capitalism would eventually eat its young, just as we are seeing now. He erred, however, in discounting the brand new[/i] concept of Democracy as a moderator, by following the consensus thought of thousands of philosophers before him who had held that the common man was incapable of self-government, and must instead rely upon the intelligentsia for guidance.

Having the chaotic results of the French Revolution before him, one cannot blame him for doing so.. OTOH, as we witness the common man losing his/her Democratic control today through laziness and indifference, he may well have been right there too.

So Marx’s system puts ownership of all resources and means of production in the hands of the people through the State. To ensure proper management, he thought that in giving management over to experts who had no personal interest in profits, this would deter corrupt practices. As a failsafe, control over the whole shebang would be in the hands of the Party, who theoretically at least, would represent the interests of the people by adhering to the Dialectic.

Perhaps because he had devised a political adaptation of Hegel’s distillation of Christian thought (But not Catholicism’s hatred of anything communal) he felt Communists would recognise their duty to their fellow man and run their system accordingly. Thus, he did not account for what Lord Acton was to later write (1886) "[i]Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, control soon wound up in the hands of the tyrant Stalin, and the Russian Communism we saw is more correctly called Stalinism - power gone mad. With.Putin’s recovering of the plunder Corporate gangsters reaped following the collapse of the USSR, we may yet see Socialism in Russia.

The only real test of Communism today is in Cuba, and one has to admire any system which can deliver so many social advantages to its people - even more than its US neighbour, which has maintained an economic blockade, filled the streets of Havana with CIA agents, and blasted its citizens with propaganda for 50 years. What would the US do about a country which has mounted assassination attempts upon its President, as it has done with Cuba?

So I ask of Stump who writes :

[i]Any of the achievements of Western capitalism could also have been done with other economic systems, except for creating a subset of super-wealthy sociopaths..

WHICH other ECONOMIC systems Stump, would prevent the elites from grasping control, since all political systems today must use Capitalism ?

And despite all you've written Canis Latrans, I still haven't the faintest idea of what political or economic system you want either.

Quote:WHICH other ECONOMIC

I don't think I intimated I had the answer. However, it seems mixed systems such as we see in socialist democracies currently are the most effective at curbing the excesses of both capitalism and communism.

re glitches

Hey Tyee, WTF's wrong with your italicisation etc, system? I've seen what just happend to me happen to others too.

re glitches

Hey Tyee, WTF's wrong with your italicisation etc, system? I've seen what just happened to me happen to others too.

Stump

Yeah, that's what I think, too. It seems so obvious it makes me wonder why others can't see it.

Cap[itlism or ...

Maybe because the concept that is emerging, which Stump, and not infrequently yourself, even if contradictorily from time to time, and myself are grappling with, is sufficiently new that it doesn't have an appropriate "label" attached to it as yet?
And I know some folks get intellectually paralysed without their labels. :-) (I'll leave the labelling to others. I'm more concerned with content.)

And folks as have read earlier Coyote, and of late myself, will likely know that our primary concern is, (because in my view evolving society is increasingly evidencing the stresses and strains need for it), that there is emerging a need to confront the corporatist ideologues and ruling class as currently control the commanding heights of the economy. In its place, I think is becoming increasingly clear, the responding need that this especially corporate sector be democratized, opened up to the joint day to day management and strategic direction participation of first its workers, and secondly such community interest stakeholders as likewise have a rightful expectation to be included in the decision new making process. (All these worker and citizen/community interests having a full voice and vote, with full rights of disclosure and access to financial records, on boards of directors and other management committees etc.)

Only in this way is it, in my view, that the power of the ruling class and its CEO elites rooted there in the great corporations will be brought under control and made to submit to this democratizing need.

As for the privately run "mom and pop" shops of the economy, I think they by and large continue to serve the services needs of society, and are largely not an issue-, so long as they are held to the fair treatment and income needs of their workforce, which is but a regulatory matter only better enforced than at present.

Additionally, some of these small scale enterprises that grow out of individual, partnership, or co-op initiative can also serve as a kind of nursery sector for future large scale enterprises, where opportunity and need exist. (And I think there needs to be some regulatory and financial/management assistance encouragement of worker owned and run co-ops).) And where over time these increasingly large scale developing enterprises receive injections of public cash and other forms of marketing or research assistance, it is with equity strings attached that allow for the drawing in of worker and community participation again, in the step by step creation over time of a democratized enterprise.

Continued next post

Capitalism or... 2

From previous post.

But largely what needs to occur here is, the regulatory creation of a "new normal" that moves society away from corporate ruling class and corporate elite control.

The current "political power" of the established ruling class is, in fact, rooted in their control of the economy. It is the wealth and power they accumulate there that translates into their control and manipulation capacity over the state, and where they exist, its electoral processes. Which serves to keep the state the preserve of their interests through bought and paid for, or otherwise directly or indirectly influenced and managed "professional politicians", from whatever political party.

Change that dynamic, by democratizing the commanding heights of the economy, and you will, in my view, change the operating political dynamics as well. The State too will thereby be further subject to a more powerful democratic influence and will, through a different economic power and wealth distribution arrangement.

It's the money/wealth that talks, and of course, those who control the sources of its creation. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE. :-)

REVOLUTION ??

Great stuff, Canis L, but as JR Saul has pointed out so well, the elites have done a good job of dividing us up into competing groups whose self-interests preclude our acting in unison.

I can't see an effective opposition to the elite's control being mounted in piecemeal, as you suggest. Do you see an attractive enough flag around which we could rally?

Refolution...

Which is precisely the spear point from which current society hangs, no doubt. But which is subject to sudden change as well, given the direction of current neoconazi developments within capitalist society.

The ongoing problem is, of course, that until there is such a sea change as occurs in society, evidenced by people spontaneously putting themselves in motion, I don't think there is a great deal that can be done about it. And there is no flag out there currently that I think it would do one damn bit of good rallying around, frankly. Not a one of them. For not a one of them can do a morsel bit of good until there is a dynamic change. They can only play the soft shoe shuffle "electoral games" of ruling class managed and manipulated capitalism-, which in my view, is somewhat more like sticking your dick out an open window in a futile bid to fornicate with the world.

Sometimes ya just gotta take a cold shower and wait for better circumstances. :-)

Maybe this isn't the right place

to post this story:
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=cadc4b43-96e4-49a3-905d-8bcfda080194

And I don't often post anything from the Province either - but, these are the kinds of things we can expect from the employers the Campbell government brings into its projects here in BC - taking advantage both of our own workers and the foreign workers brought here to help pad the bottom line and inflate profits.

These guys have to go.

is this the right place...

... when trying link to article G West provided could not help but notice article in Province Whats most important to Canadians and its the CLIMATE and they expect their governments to get right on it...lets see oh yes Farewell its a travesty that so many went without food and shelter while over a hundred million was spent needlessly without check points and balances and research. You fight to death a man or women to give them $500 but then spend over a hundred million on a few programs despite controversy and data questioning the Ministries actions when it comes to these programs where is the accountability?

re solidarity

I sure hope people in the union movement are looking after the interests of those men who blew the whistle in your Province story, GWest.