The end of civilization as we know it!

This funny video comes to us from Vote for MMP. Only 2:16 long. If you like it, rate it 5 stars and favourite it. We've only got a week left 'til the referendum.

Just in case you need more information, here's Ten Reasons to Vote for Mixed Member Proportional (MMP).

The Politics of Solidarity: Six Nations, Leadership, and the Settler Left

The European settlers who colonized most of North America, were themselves uprooted from the land through capitalist enclosure and the commodification of land and labour – a process later exported to the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the rest of the world. By becoming small farmers and independent commodity producers in the early stages of Canadian development, poor and working class settlers in North America clearly benefited from the theft of indigenous lands. However, over the past 100 years, capitalism has extended and intensified its reach. Non-native people have become increasingly concentrated in large cities (Canada has the most urbanized population per capita in the world) and have been integrated into the capitalist system as workers. Because of the inherently exploitative dynamics of capitalism, workers in North America have faced a decline in living standards since the neo-liberal offensive of the late 1970s.

As William Robinson has argued, the contemporary resurgence of indigenous struggle in the Americas is happening as the few remaining autonomous indigenous communities are being forced into compliance with the demands of capitalist world market. This market seeks to commodify their labour and their land. At the same time, it seeks to drive down living standards and commodify the lives of non-native people as well. These pressures are just as evident on the Haldimand tract as they are in Canada's far north, in the mountains of Chiapas, or in the jungles of the Amazon. Traditional indigenous resistance to enclosure and commodification is increasingly assuming a directly anti-capitalist character. When this resistance takes place in large urban areas where a relatively small proportion of settlers directly occupy the land in question, new opportunities for joint struggles arise. Doing this kind of work will not be easy. Building radical organizations and combating white racism within predominantly white communities, workplaces, and political organization will be particularly hard. But it remains necessary task as a pre-condition to building meaningful solidarity with indigenous struggles.

Read this article by Tom Keefer via Whenua, Fenua, Enua, Vanua (originally published here), discussing how non-native activists can support indigenous struggles, like that of the Six Nations reclamation in Caledonia, breaking away from the "leadership" model, and turning towards work within our own comminities as well as alliances with indigenous communities. It is a long article, but worth the read.

Canadian Progressives: Do These Three Things Today

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I had a final exam in Capitalist Propaganda... er... economics. Apparently, the world didn't stop just because I dropped out of it, so I have lots of reading to catch up on.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of links for you:

Donate 10.10 for MMP. Get behind this important democratic reform - especially if you live in Ontario. Lots more info here.

Sick of CNN and FOX and even CBC? Check out The Real News, "a global, alternative online news network that takes no advertising, government subsidies or corporate sponsorship. No strings. Just solid, fact-based news." If you like it, join me at the Real News Junkies.

If you haven't already done this, sign onto the Canadians for Democratic Media campaign. Read this for more info on media consolidation.

The camouflaged native as blockader is Canada's fave new stereotype

From a piece by Drew Hayden Taylor (First Nations comedian and author of several books including Me Funny):

Blockades were not part of our traditional culture. Historically, Canada had too many wide-open spaces for native people to successfully blockade anything. But we are an adaptable people. After a while, we learned to blockade roads and railways, just as we learned to hunt with guns, cook with flour and lard and ride in cars. It seems like a natural progression.

Sadly, this image of the camouflaged native as blockader is replacing the drunken Indian as Canada's favourite new stereotype.

Children are in danger of becoming more familiar with the Indian wearing a bandana to hide his face than with the mighty warrior on a horse hunting buffalo. In the U.S., the dominant stereotype is the casino Indian.

Here in Canada, I know many people who've been involved in blockades and other acts of civil disobedience. They do not make these choices lightly. Most of them know things will get worse before they get better.

Everybody remembers the tragic images in Alanis Obomsawin's brilliant documentary Rocks At Whiskey Trench of local whites stoning Mohawks who were being evacuated from Kahnawake during the Oka crisis, resulting in one man dying of a heart attack.

Most people have come to understand that natives' actions at Oka, Ipperwash and other standoffs were justified. All involved years of trying to settle land claims with little response from the federal government. The ante needed to be upped.

On the news, I heard an annoyed VIA passenger bitterly condemn the native blockade: "I didn't think they were allowed to do that, but I guess they can do whatever they want." Our elders used to say the same thing about white people.
[...]
At the very least, irate VIA passengers will have an amusing tale to tell their grandkids. "I was part of the great Tyendinaga Railway Blockade of 07." I'm sure insurance will cover those companies or individuals who may have lost money because of the inconvenience. There must be some sort of "Act of Indian" clause somewhere.

Printed in this week's Now Magazine (It's been a particularly good issue). Read the Whole Thing Here

Please Keep our Streets Clean: Over 818 People Have to Sleep on Them

Seen around Toronto:

"Please Keep our Streets Clean: Over 818 People Have to Sleep on Them"

"Homeless Sleeping, QUIET"


"Approximately 5052 Homeless Living in Toronto as of April 2006"
Turns out these signs are the work of Mark Daye, a 4th year graphic design student at OCAD, who says:

Instead of rebranding a product, or service for my 4th year thesis project I chose to represent a local population that usually gets overlooked. I re-coded official signage and affixed 30 of them to poles in the downtown core with messages pertaining to an obvious but ignored urban sub culture. The goal was not only to catch people off guard by creating signs that acknowledge the homeless population on a seemingly official level, but to get people to think about codes of behaviour, conformity, acceptance and to maybe spare some consideration for the homeless who live mostly ignored in the city, blending into the background just like the signs.

"2 Homeless People Die Every Week in Toronto"

Via 3 excellent Toronto blogs: Torontoist, BlogTO, and Spacing Wire

UPDATE (APRIL 4): Reactionary Signs

Urgent call to support the Ontario Child Benefit

Write a letter to the Toronto Star supporting the Ontario Child Benefit.

Yesterday’s lead Toronto Star editorial (see below) strongly endorses a new Ontario Child Benefit as a necessary poverty reduction tool in Ontario. The Daily Bread Food Bank is recommending as many people as possible write a letter to the Star today to demonstrate support for the OCB. Resources and letter-writing tips here.

BOLD STEPS NEEDED ON CHILD POVERTY
Toronto Star Editorial - February 19, 2007

All children in low-income families deserve a fair and decent start in life, whether their parents struggle in low-wage jobs or are forced by circumstances to rely on welfare to make ends meet.

But in Ontario, unlike many other provinces, children in welfare families are unfairly punished by a provincial policy that denies their families a small amount of money – just $122 a month for each child – that would go a long way to help buy food, clothing and pay the rent.

Now, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has a golden opportunity to right this wrong in his coming provincial budget, expected in April or early May, by taking the bold step of introducing an Ontario Child Benefit as part of a comprehensive and realistic poverty reduction strategy.

Sorbara said earlier this month he is looking at a "basket of tools" to address widespread poverty in this province.

In the Star's view, that basket should include raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour from $8 and bringing in a new Ontario Child Benefit to help both those on welfare and the working poor, a move that could then lead to the elimination of Ontario's current clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement, which the Liberals pledged to do in the 2003 provincial election campaign.

Ontario's clawback of the national supplement was one of the most odious moves by the former Conservative government of premier Mike Harris. The supplement was designed to help parents who earn less than $36,000.

However, in Ontario, the provincial government claws back, or reduces, monthly benefits to people on welfare by an amount equal to 75 per cent of the federal benefit. That amounts to $122 a month per child.

Growing numbers of progressive policy planners are convinced that a more equitable way of helping both working poor families and those on welfare is to dramatically restructure the social assistance programs and de-link income support directed at children from the system entirely.

That is what is starting to happen in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where all low-income families receive a separate, income-tested child benefit, regardless of whether their parents are working or are relying on welfare.

If adopted in Ontario, a provincial child benefit could be fully indexed, income-tested and provide needed funds to all low-income families with children up to the age of 18.

By extending the benefit to low-income working families, it would ensure that parents who try to move from welfare to the workforce are not penalized. Right now, the so-called "welfare wall" means many parents on social assistance cannot afford to take a job because it means giving up needed medical and dental coverage for their children that is currently paid by the government as long as the parents are on welfare.

When combined with Ottawa's child benefit supplement, the Ontario Child Benefit would insulate all children from their parents' financial ups and downs and ultimately lessen the reliance of many poor families on food banks to feed their children.

But the new Ontario benefit must not simply combine old programs into a new program with a different name. It must result in more money in the pockets of poor families. And it ultimately must provide enough money to raise the living standards of all low-income families.

If fully implemented in one step, such a program could cost up to $1 billion a year. If a provincial program was combined with the national plan, a single parent with one child, for example, would get $1,254 a month in assistance. Under the existing structure, the assistance is $1,132 monthly.

To ease the financial impact on the coming budget, the Ontario Child Benefit could be phased in, possibly over a three- to four-year period, with much of the benefit coming the first year. For instance, $60 a month might be instituted immediately, followed by an extra $31 a month in the each of the next two years, bringing the total to $122 month per child. Such a phased-in approach could mean Queen's Park would have to budget $300 million to $500 million in the first year, rather than $1 billion.

While some taxpayers may balk at the government spending such sums of money, all Ontarians have a vested interest in addressing poverty because a healthy, well-educated and more prosperous workforce will help drive the provincial economy into the future.

In the end, helping children grow up in the best possible environment is not only a sensible goal, but also the right thing for Sorbara to do.

p.s. Don't forget to participate in the Federal Government's online pre-budget consultation before Feb 28, 2007. The site asks you to rank your priorities, and then lets you comment on each one. It's pretty limited but you can select “Spending” and “Other” as your top priorities, and then on the next page write comments detailing your thoughts. It only takes a minute. (more info)