Democracy gone Astray: Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hate Citizens United? Common Cause Has A Way To Say So In 2012

WASHINGTON -- What do you do when people are growing increasingly angry about the influence of money on the political system -- but that very same political system is too co-opted to care?

Common Cause on Tuesday announced an attempt to put a measure on the ballot in all 50 states that would allow voters to constructively express that anger -- and forcefully express their view that unlimited spending is hijacking our democracy.

"In the spirit of Occupy, we are creating the tools for as close to a national referendum as we can," said Bob Edgar, president of the nonpartisan government watchdog group.

"The potential for corruption and scandal is now the worst it's been since Watergate and Nixon's bag men," said Robert Reich, who chairs Common Cause's board. "All this is just going to get worse unless people do something dramatically to stop it."

With unlimited individual and corporate funds already rocking the political world -- as unaccountable millions pour into the GOP primaries -- critics have focused their ire on the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which made it all possible.

A diverse crowd of hundreds from around the country descended on Capitol Hill Tuesday as the Occupy movement tried to get its point across to a Congress returning from a long recess.

"We came to add to the numbers, to be heard," said Rosetta Star, a social entrepreneur from Asheville, N.C. "We came to inspire others; we came to inspire our children. We came because we can't sit still and pretend like nothing is going wrong, when we feel like the collective bus of the country is getting driven off a cliff."

Star, who with her husband, Jack, runs the restaurant Rosetta's Kitchen and a compostable packaging firm, Jack's Boxes, as well as a third business, said she wanted Congress to stop paying the majority of its attention to the most fortunate.

"Our systems are flawed by a for-profit mentality, and therefore the needs of the masses are being ignored for the profits of the few," said Star, who is managing to make a go of her own entrepreneurial ventures while balancing activism.

"We make a living between hustling for those three different small businesses," said Star, who traveled to Washington with her four children and one of their friends, as well as her father. "We even make a living enough that we got a hotel when we came to Occupy."

"Grandpa and the boys camped" though, she added.

Sides both for and against SOPA are preparing for Wednesday's day of action, as other big Internet sites, like Wikipedia and Google, have joined Reddit in its protest. With Wikipedia's announcement that it would indeed blackout its site to raise awareness for the effects of the anti-piracy bill, this has turned into more than just a niche Internet movement. And, anti-blackout grumblings are peaking, with notorious pro-SOPA advocate former senator Chris Dodd calling the effort a "gimmick, albeit a dangerous one." Other sites (Mozilla, TwitPic, Wordpress) have joined Wikipedia in its blackout, while other companies, like Google, which will post an anti-SOPA link, have taken less drastic measures.

Even as the anti-SOPA camp can't quite agree on the right protest tactic, organizers have confirmed to Politico that over 7,000 sites will strike. SOPAStrike.com has the list of participants, which includes well known Internet destinations like Google, Icanhazcheesburger and Moveon.org. Not all of these sites will blackout, per se, but will "do the biggest thing you possibly can, and drive contacts to Congress," as the site describes. For others, the site also offers other ways to get involved, such as Tweeting #SOPASTRIKE or adding homemade plugins to WordPress blogs.

Meanwhile, hoping to get the Wikipedialess on their side before the protest starts, the Pro-SOPA side is decrying the whole thing as a publicity stunt. "It’s time for the stunts to end and those who claim to care about rogue website theft to back up their rhetoric and work with us on meaningful solutions," Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, told Politico's David Saleh Raud, Kim Hart and Jonathan Allen. The falls in line with Dodd's statement, in which he calls the blackout an abuse of power. "It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests," he said. And, just in time for the mega protest, the SOPA cheerleaders have something to celebrate, as the Judiciary Committee has announced the hearings will resume next month.

Whether pro or anti the bill, prepare for some Internet outages between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. EST. For those who have some explaining to do to their Wikipedia dependent kids, this teacher explanation of Why Is Wikipedia Going Away for a Day? might help.

Original Article
Source: Atlantic Wire

Caledonia: Tim Hudak Says Hydro Towers Should Carry Electricity, Not Mohawk Warrior Flags

TORONTO - Ontario needs to restart a long-stalled expansion of hydro transmission lines in the southwestern Ontario town of Caledonia despite objections from aboriginal groups, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said Tuesday.

The 76-kilometre hydro line has been in limbo for years because Six Nations warriors won't let workers put up the wires.

The $116-million project was stopped in 2006 to ease tensions after aboriginal protesters occupied a residential development in the picturesque town near Hamilton, saying the land belonged to them.

The protest triggered a bitter standoff that is still ongoing nearly six years later.

Asked if hydro workers should complete the job even if it means that they have to do it under police protection, Hudak agreed.

"Clearly, something has to be done," he said.

"Some leadership should be shown on this file after six years of paralysis and a total abdication of rule of law. Those towers, those lines should be carrying electricity, not flying Mohawk warrior flags."

Thomas Mulcair Dual Citizenship: NDP Leadership Hopeful Defends French Passport, Accuses PM Of Parochialism

OTTAWA - Thomas Mulcair says Stephen Harper's apparent disdain for Canadians who hold dual citizenship has exposed the prime minister's parochial, insular and hypocritical approach to politics.

The NDP leadership hopeful went on the attack Tuesday after Harper appeared to question Mulcair's loyalty to Canada.

Mulcair told The Canadian Press he's proud to hold both Canadian and French citizenship.

Harper waded into the issue earlier Tuesday during a news conference in Quebec.

"Just to be clear, these cases have come up in the past, and obviously it’s for Mr. Mulcair to use his political judgement in this case," Harper said.

"In my case, as I say, I’m very clear. I’m a Canadian and only a Canadian."

Mulcair said Harper appears to be implying that Canadians who hold dual citizenship — some 863,000 of them, according to the 2006 census — are somehow lesser Canadians or have divided loyalties.

OTTAWA - Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday his upcoming budget will seek to address longer-term problems facing Canada, while protecting the country from external shocks in the current economic environment.

"This budget will relate not only to the upcoming year, it will relate to several years into the future," he told reporters.

"It's all part of the plan to ensure the Canadian brand, which is very strong in the world, stays strong and that we'll be in a position as we were a few years ago to withstand shocks that attack our economy from the outside."

The minister did not give specifics, but news reports suggest the government is looking to limit Old Age Security benefits to qualified people at least 67 years of age, rather than starting at 65, and to tackle pension plans for federal employees and elected members of Parliament.

The government is also putting its mind to the issue of how demographics — the aging population — will impact tax revenues and expenses in a slow-growth economy.

In December, Flaherty said Ottawa plans to continue increasing health transfer payments at six per cent annually for three years after the current deal expires in 2015 before tying the transfer dollars to economic growth and inflation.

Flaherty said the upcoming budget will stick to its target of eliminating the $32 billion federal deficit in four or five years, but anything more aggressive is likely not in the cards given the challenges facing the economy.

Montreal Ex-Cop Tried Selling Secrets To Mafia: Police Chief

MONTREAL - Montreal's police chief is promising swift action after reports that a retired officer allegedly tried to sell information on stoolies to the Mafia.

Marc Parent said Tuesday the 33-year veteran of the force worked in the intelligence unit and was one of a handful of people who had access to a confidential list of names.

Several reports said he allegedly had contact with a lawyer who represents organized crime figures and that he offered information in exchange for a six-figure sum.

He allegedly gave the lawyer four names to show he was serious — people who have since been contacted by police, Parent said.

The man has not been charged and his name has not been made public. The alleged offences occurred after his retirement in January 2011.

Police say the information that led to the allegations surfaced in April 2011 during a wiretap investigation.

An ongoing internal investigation revealed that none of the informants was deemed to be at risk, Parent said. The force is now reviewing computer security and protocols for having access to sensitive information.

It's beyond dispute Iran is developing nuclear weapons and lying about it, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told CBC News chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge on Monday.

In an exclusive interview, Harper says the evidence, some from the International Atomic Energy Agency, is overwhelming that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

“I think there is absolutely no doubt they are lying. Absolutely no doubt,” Harper said of Iran's claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

An IAEA report last fall said some of Iran's clandestine activities could be for no other reason than a nuclear weapons program.

"And that, I think, is just beyond dispute at this point," Harper said. "I think the only dispute is how far advanced it is."

Last November, following the IAEA report, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. imposed new sanctions on Iran's banking and oil and gas industries.

Harper says it's scary to hear what the Iranian regime says.

OTTAWA—Provincial premier or pipeline protester, you had a common plight Tuesday.

You both found yourself in British Columbia, pushing back against that immovable object, Stephen Harper.

At their waterfront hotel in Victoria, most premiers took turns over two days spitting disdain at Harper’s 10-year, no-strings-attached health-care funding plan presented to their finance ministers — without debate — last month.

Harper was unmoved.

In an interview with CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, he told the provinces to get on with health-care innovation (they did) and stop obsessing about money.

“I hope that we can put the funding issue aside, and they can concentrate on actually talking about health care, because that’s the discussion we’ll be having,’’ he said.

Over on the mainland, National Energy Board hearings on the Northern Gateway pipeline project were resuming at the Island Gospel Fellowship Church in Burns Lake.

On this, too, Harper appears unshakeable, but his comments on the Gateway project deserve more scrutiny.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) is the bill being considered by the House of Representatives.

The Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) is the parallel bill being considered by the Senate.

The proposed legislation is designed to tackle online piracy, with particular emphasis on illegal copies of films and other forms of media hosted on foreign servers.

The bills propose that anyone found guilty of streaming copyrighted content without permission 10 or more times within six months should face up to five years in jail.

The US government and rights holders would have the right to seek court orders against any site accused of "enabling or facilitating" piracy. This could theoretically involve an entire website being shut down because it contains a link to a suspect site.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney has a new definition of "not much": $374,327.

On Tuesday, the Republican presidential candidate finally admitted that the effective tax rate he has been paying for the last several years is likely below that of middle-class workers, which would also include military servicemembers.

In Greenville, S.C., Romney was asked directly what his effective tax rate is. It was a hot topic of discussion at Monday night's debate, at which Romney repeatedly declined to fully commit to release his tax returns.

"It's probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything," said Romney on Tuesday. "For the past 10 years, my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income or earned annual income. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. Then, I get speakers fees from time to time, but not very much."

Not very much? According to his personal financial disclosure, from February 2010 to February 2011, Romney earned $374,327.62 in speaking fees. A few months later, Romney joked that he was "unemployed."

His rival, Newt Gingrich, said that he made $60,000 per speech -- defending himself against the charge that he served as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, for which he was paid over $1.6 million for strategic advice.

It's on in Wisconsin.

On Tuesday afternoon, the grassroots group United Wisconsin collected more than a million signatures in the past two months to trigger a recall election of Republican Gov. Scott Walker—nearly twice the 540,208 minimum. That's almost as many signatures as votes Walker received in his 2010 gubernatorial election (1.12 million), and hundreds of thousands more than the 720,000 signatures Walker predicted on Rush Limbaugh's show Tuesday. Democrats also said 845,000 signatures had been collected to recall Walker's right-hand woman, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. Additionally, enough signatures were bagged to recall GOP state senators Pam Galloway, Terry Moulton, and Van Wangaard.

The Walker and Kleefisch recall efforts were spearheaded by the grassroots group United Wisconsin, which signed up more than 30,000 volunteers to canvass all of the state's 72 counties. United Wisconsin launched the recall campaign at midnight on November 15, and had 60 days to gather enough signatures to recall the governor and his lieutenant. Accounting for the signature-vetting process and legal challenges, the recall elections for Walker and Kleefisch are likely to take place in late April or May.

The signatures must still be reviewed by the state's Government Accountability Board and could also face legal challenges by lawyers for state Republicans.

TORONTO - Five former Toronto drug squad officers accused of corruption showed a pattern of "violent shakedowns," beating up drug dealers, stealing their money and then lying to cover their tracks, the Crown alleged Monday as the long-delayed trial finally got underway.

John Pearson, one of the four prosecutors in the case, said the accused were prone to "unjustified acts of physical violence against people who were in their custody."

The Crown's first witness, Christopher Quigley, told the court he was assaulted by one of the accused while another looked on.

"I was attacked by officers while I was in custody," he said. " I was beaten repeatedly."

Quigley, a marijuana dealer, said he was arrested by plainclothes officers over a pair of stolen sunglasses and taken to the station, where he was asked by increasingly angry officers where he kept his drugs and money.

Photographs introduced as evidence show cuts and bruises on Quigley's face and body, including a bruised rib and a black eye that swelled shut.

He took the photographs, Quigley said, "to document what happened to me while in police custody."

NATO soldiers can shoot Taliban terrorists. They can bomb them from the air. They can fire missiles at them from remote-controlled drones.

But they can’t pee on their dead bodies.

That is the latest anti-American, anti-troops “scandal” being cooked up by the Media Party against four U.S. marines videotaped relieving themselves on terrorist corpses in Afghanistan.

The Taliban terrorist group — mass murderers — was outraged by the peeing. Its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, actually said: “This is not the first time we see such brutality.”

So the murderers of thousands, and the enslavers of millions, condemn peeing as “brutality.”

All of which is reported with a straight face by our anti-war media.

It’s not just our enemies who are calling it brutal. So are our so-called allies.

Arsala Rahmani, part of Aghanistan’s “High Peace Council,” said the peeing video, available on YouTube, will “leave a very, very bad impact on peace efforts.”

Mayor Rob Ford budget challenge: Centrist councillor’s motion would undo many cuts

In a major challenge to Mayor Rob Ford, a centrist councillor asked council on Tuesday to reject many of Ford’s proposed service cuts — raising the possibility that the mayor will suffer a highly unusual budget defeat.

With Ford’s staunch allies vehemently opposed and council’s left-leaning and centrist factions in favour, the vote is sure to be extremely close. It may take place on Tuesday night.

The debate hinges on the question of what to do with the city’s estimated $154 million surplus from 2011.

Ford argued at length Tuesday morning that the surplus should be entirely devoted to paying for the city’s $700 million share of TTC streetcar purchase approved by the previous council. That would reduce the city’s debt burden, Ford argued, and end the irresponsible practice of using one-time windfalls to fund ongoing programs and services.

On Tuesday afternoon, Grassroots groups and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will unveil their signature haul in the effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. They need at least 540,208 signatures to trigger recall elections for Walker and Kleefsich, but it's clear they've easily surpassed that mark.

So where will Walker be when the final signature tally is announced? In the state capital or the governor's mansion, standing his ground and defending his record? Nope. He'll be in New York City at the world headquarters of the megabank Citigroup raising money for his recall defense effort.

Tuesday's Walker fundraiser, first reported by the New York Daily News, is hosted by no less than Hank Greenberg, the former CEO of American International Group, the global insurance corporation that needed $150 billion in bailout funds in 2008 and 2009 from the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve. The cost of attending is $2,500 per person or $5,000 per couple.

VICTORIA - The premiers of Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island will lead the charge in a provincially-driven working group to improve health care.

Formation of the group was announced this morning at the Council of the Federation winter meetings underway in Victoria.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and Robert Ghiz of Prince Edward Island say they would prefer to have Ottawa on side, but they believe Canadians and the province's want movement on health care.

Wall says the provinces and territories will share practices on innovation, especially health standards.

He says the provinces will move ahead with the process, despite Prime Minister Stephen Harper's comments that no more money is available for a new health funding formula.

The current transfer program expires in 2014 and premiers and territorial leaders worry that a federal plan to tie future payments to economic growth could leave provinces struggling to afford the health care needs of an aging population.

Original Article
Source: Winnipeg Free Press

Dumping of furniture by feds based on 'huge guess,' say emails

OTTAWA — The federal government's preference to buy new office furniture for its bureaucrats instead of reusing what it already had is based on a "huge guess," suggests internal correspondence released in the wake of a recent recycling controversy at Environment Canada.

The emails exchanged between various bureaucrats at Public Works and Government Services and a private consultant contrast with the government's public defence of a decision to replace hundreds of work stations — described as the "BMW" of furniture — with brand new equipment for an Environment Canada building under renovations in Gatineau, Que.

One public servant, making estimates of costs for a different federal renovation project, acknowledged that projections of higher costs for recycled furniture may have been overstated.

"There is a huge guess in here, to separate workstations from free-standing . . . we did not get this split from the contractor," wrote Brian Caldwell, a project manager from Public Works and Government Services Canada for Major Crown Projects, in a May 27, 2010 email released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation.

Caldwell's message, sent to Jeffrey Wood from the CRG Consulting firm, estimated a cost of $2,793 for each recycled work station versus $2,665 for each brand new workstation, but suggested that the cost of using recycled furniture could be cheaper if officials managed all of the different aspects, including the price of storage, more effectively.

It's been building for some time, and maybe the protest against Keystone XL was just the final straw, but it's clearly over between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Dalai Lama.

As Harper prepares for his second state visit to China in mid-February to discuss oil exports and greater economic ties, it can be assumed his government has moved beyond its enthrallment with the Tibetan spiritual leader in its early days in power.

The Dalai Lama is a lot of good things. What he is not, however, is able to buy millions of barrels of Canadian oil, or shiploads of lumber, wheat or beef. Or invest billions of dollars in Canada's economy. The Beijing government does all of those things. It is Canada's second largest trading partner with the value of merchandise moving between the countries reaching $57.7 billion in 2010.

These days, foreign policy under Harper's Conservatives appears to be driven far more by economics than by concern over human rights. What happened? Who got to them?

- Lots of things - most linked to the Canadian economy.
- Lots of people - most linked to Canada's tradedependent economy.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, joining Capitol Hill Republicans and business groups, said Iran’s threat to block a major oil shipping lane builds the case for U.S. approval of the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

“When you look at the Iranians threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, I think that just illustrates how critical it is that supply for the United States be North American,” Harper told the CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, in an interview that aired Monday.

Harper’s government is urging White House approval of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed $7 billion pipeline to bring oil sands crude from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries.

The U.S. political battle over Keystone is unfolding amid Iranian threats to block the marine shipping lane that serves as the transit point for one-fifth of the world’s oil.

Experts say Iran is unlikely to follow through on the threat, which would greatly escalate military tensions, and hurt Iran itself financially in addition to disrupting flows from other oil-producing nations.

But Republicans are nonetheless citing the threat and wider Middle East instability as they push the White House to back Keystone XL.

re today's new technologies and memes really so revolutionary?

When you think of Facebook, the last image that comes to mind is newsprint. When you try to explain Twitter to someone, the feathered quill isn’t the first thing you reference. When you answer an iPhone, you are not at all reminded of picking up the handset of a big rotary phone. Yet these are the icons that are used to represent such cutting-edge platforms and devices. (Facebook’s “news-feed” icon depicts a newspaper, Twitter’s newly redesigned “publish” icon features a feathered quill, and iPhone’s phone app is illustrated with an old-fashioned handset.) The use of this old-fashioned imagery is puzzling. Logic would dictate that the creators of these cutting-edge platforms would try to distance the new from the old, but that’s clearly not the case.

This phenomenon of reaching into the past to describe the future goes beyond the iconography of new media – it’s also part of our lexicon. Marshall McLuhan, in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, briefly comments on this trend. He says that terms such as “wireless” and “horseless carriage” illustrate how innovations must “pass through a primary phase in which the new effect is secured by the old method amplified or modified by some new feature.” In more modern times, a prime example is the cordless phone, a term that David Foster Wallace pokes fun at in Infinite Jest through a character that invents a gag joke called the “phoneless cord.” The cordless phone, the “newspaper” Facebook feed, the “quill” Twitter button, and the horseless carriage are all instances of this trend. However, neither McLuhan nor Wallace offer explanations as to why this happens.

I think we can learn a lot about the nature of innovation and communication by dissecting these symbols and phrases. Is this imagery that leans on the past to communicate something new just lazy graphic design, or is there something deeper going on here? Why are the most nuanced and advanced media platforms falling victim to iconographic regression?

The federal government should require companies to offer workplace pensions like the new pooled-pension program being developed in Canada, business owners say in a new survey.

A poll of 800 companies by an insurance industry association shows 68 per cent of small- and medium-sized company employers that don’t currently offer a pension plan are interested in participating in the government’s voluntary new Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) program, which will allow workers to set aside money through payroll deductions in a pension savings fund.

The program has been designed to help the majority of private-sector workers in Canada who have no workplace pension plan to supplement their personal savings for retirement.

The survey also found 71 per cent of those surveyed agreed that it should become mandatory for employers to offer some form of retirement plan to workers, especially since PRPPs will be a low-cost alternative.

“We are on the cusp of making a fundamental shift in the pension landscape,” said Frank Swedlove, president of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association.

Sirens wailed and guitar strings screeched as the 2013 Dodge Dart rolled onto a stage at this year’s Detroit auto show. Hundreds were there to see the first new vehicle spawned by the marriage of Chrysler Group LLC and Fiat Group Automobiles S.p.A. in 2009. They weren’t disappointed. The sporty small car, built using Fiat’s Alpha Romeo Giulietta platform, represents yet another attempt by Chrysler to reach into its rich past for an all-new vehicle—in this case, for the name of a popular sedan from the 1960s and 1970s—while shedding its reputation for building only powerful muscle cars and hulking pickup trucks.

The Dart is meant to compete head-to-head with the brisk-selling Chevrolet Cruze, sleek Ford Focus and popular Honda Civic by adding some attitude to the segment. Prospective buyers will have their choice from a long list of optional features, including LED accent lighting, an 8.4-inch touch screen and no less than seven different steering wheel choices. “The traditional ‘why buys?’ in the segment are price, fuel economy and reliability,” says Dodge president Reid Bigland, who chatted with onlookers following the unveiling. “But today those are no longer differentiators. They’re just simply the minimum barriers to entry. We wanted to do more.”

Chrysler wasn’t the only automaker flaunting a little extra flash at the annual industry gathering. Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled a Scion-badged rear-wheel-drive car called the FR-S, built in partnership with Subaru, marking the ﬁrst time in years it will have a sports car in its lineup. General Motors Co., meanwhile, displayed a sportier version of its subcompact Chevrolet Sonic and two Chevy concept cars that attempted to combine the look of raw power with a frugal budget (with mixed results). For those who can afford the real thing, a long-nosed Lexus sports coupe concept was also on display, as was a low-slung Acura NSX “super car” concept.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s memories of public protests against an established order are long and—likely for him—disconcerting.

In 1989, Putin was working for Russia’s KGB spy agency in the East German city of Dresden. His tasks included recruiting agents. Shortly after the Berlin Wall was breached, an angry crowd of Germans besieged the KGB office, which was located next to an office of the Stasi East German secret police. They wanted files on informants. Putin took it upon himself to confront them. He said the office didn’t belong to the Stasi but to the Soviet Union, and armed men inside would defend it. Some reports say Putin himself carried a weapon. When some in the crowd grew suspicious and questioned Putin about his excellent German, he told them he was a translator.

Putin managed to calm everyone down. The crowd dispersed. But Putin—who earlier in the evening telephoned a local Soviet army unit and was told it could do nothing—must have known the gig was up. East and West Germany were reunited within a year, and the Soviet Union itself collapsed soon after. A seemingly unshakable political order had dissolved, in large part because ordinary citizens had filled streets and public squares to demand its end.

The Occupy movement, globally ubiquitous and proudly obtrusive, is remembered as one of the top news stories of 2012. In reality, the effort by various species of crank to take over public parks probably wasn’t even the most important “people occupying stuff” news item of the year, at least in North America. That honour rightly belongs to the February swarming of the Wisconsin legislature by up to 100,000 protesters dedicated to stopping Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget repair bill.” The new Republican governor, hoping to balance the state budget without reversing tax cuts of the past decade, struck at the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers, taking away their right to negotiate benefits and capping pay increases at the inﬂation rate.

The result was a ferocious multi-theatre battle over the value of public sector unions. It raged all year from the steps of the Capitol building in Madison to the state Supreme Court, the schools and universities, and even Wisconsin’s prisons, where guards threatened a wildcat strike and Walker countered by contemplating the use of the National Guard for replacement manpower. In August the state set a record for the largest number of recall elections held simultaneously in the U.S., as six Republicans and three Democrats in the state Senate were caught in the crossfire. (All but two Republicans survived.)

One wonders why this sort of massive fundamental confrontation over public sector unions—a type of confrontation that is all but perpetual in the United Kingdom—has been absent from Canada. It is not as though Canadian governments have failed to present pretexts for warfare. For 30 years the federal government has intervened in labour disputes only occasionally, but in 2011 Labour Minister Lisa Raitt went on a tear, threatening Air Canada customer-service staff with back-to-work legislation in June, pushing a Canada Post lockout of CUPW workers to binding arbitration by statute, and pre-empting Air Canada-CUPE negotiations in October.

No item of female apparel summons more attention, animosity, debate or censor in Western society than the veil covering Muslim women. That’s saying something in a culture inured to the sight of sweatpants with “Juicy” on the backside, Abercrombie & Fitch’s padded “push-up” swimsuit tops for eight-year-old girls, and women teetering on skyscraper porno heels as hobbling as the “chopines” worn by 16th-century Venetian prostitutes.

Governments are racing to restrict the veil in its various declensions: hijab, chador, abaya, niqab, burka. France and Belgium banned face-and-body concealing burkas and niqabs last year; similar legislation is in the works in other European countries, echoing campaigns to rid cityscapes of minarets. Last June, Muslim women were singled out by FIFA, the world soccer body, which banned players from wearing Islamic headdresses on the grounds they could cause a “choking injury.” The Canadian federal government drew its first line in the sand last month when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced a ban on face veils during the swearing-in of the citizenship oath. Quebec’s Bill 94, which would deny essential public services to women in niqabs in the name of “public security, communication and identification,” is wending through the legislature.

So what’s really going on here? Why are women many see as subjugated the ones being censured? Part of what’s driving this is the visceral response a veiled face summons in the West: it’s a mystery and a threat. Unless you’re a surgeon, a goalie, a bride or a belly dancer, masking one’s face is anti-social, a prelude to robbing a bank or attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Faces confer identity, legally and socially. Covering them can signal Darth Vader menace. It’s dehumanizing.

The Conservative government's banning of veils during citizenship ceremonies is self-defeating and wrongheaded.

There is a lot more to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's policy prohibiting Muslim women from covering their faces during citizenship ceremonies than meets the eye. Since Dec. 12, 2011, when Kenney publicly announced the new policy, a heated debate has emerged in Canada focusing on a variety of pertinent questions: Does the policy violate the right to religious freedom enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Does it promote or deny women’s rights more generally? Does it further marginalize Muslims? Is the policy even necessary? And, finally, does it actually achieve what it aims to? Though all of these questions are important, several key criticisms of the veil policy deserve further attention.

For one thing, the government’s veil policy ignores the complexity of the notion of “choice” with respect to the circumstances under which immigrants and refugees migrate to Canada. Clearly, many groups of immigrants and refugees do not migrate to Canada by choice. Rather, they are forced out of their countries of origin by threats to their safety and lives. In fact, the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees states:

A refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.

While most refugees do not choose their country of resettlement, issues of gender inequality within many refugee and migrant families mean that women, in particular, often have no say on where they will migrate. It is therefore unreasonable and counterproductive for the Canadian government to suggest that women who do not feel comfortable taking their veils off should not migrate to Canada. If countering the oppression of women is what the government is after, then requiring women to remove their veils during citizenship ceremonies is self-defeating.

Canada is at the brink of what is probably the most radical shift in energy and foreign policy since Pierre Trudeau and Mitchell Sharp engineered the ultimately doomed “Third Option” 40 years ago, which was all about reducing our economic reliance on the United States. This time around, everything is happening quite suddenly. There has been no debate of any consequence at all – not in the House of Commons, not in the Senate, not in the proceedings of a Royal Commission. Certainly not in the news media.

Just as the underpinnings of the old order are collapsing, certain Conservatives are summoning the faithful and blanketing the newspapers with purported evidences of a Masonic strategem devised by socialist Hollywood billionaires to activate sleeper cells of Ducks Unlimited agents for the purpose of sapping Canada’s will to live as sovereign nation.

Here’s what you’ve been missing.

Ostensibly, it’s about the Enbridge project, a plan to pump condensate eastward from the coast to Alberta so that Alberta bitumen can be made fluid enough to be pumped back to the coast at Kitimat, to be put into oil tankers to be sent down Douglas Channel and out into the roaring North Pacific through a tangle of islands you will find on the charts strewn with names like Terror Point and Calamity Bay and Grief Point. A digression: It is not for nothing that such comforting placenames show up along the proposed tanker route, so don’t start with me about how I should now find comfort in knowing that the oil spill cleanup contingency plans consist of rushing out with skimmers and booms that work only in low breezes and a light chop. I’ve fished halibut in those waters, and believe me, there is a reason why heading out there in boats is known as Walking With The King. Nevermind what the “radical environmentalists” say, whoever they are.

Hundreds of shivering factory workers locked out of their plant by manufacturing giant Caterpillar in London, Ont., might well draw some warm comfort from — of all things — the sayings of Newt Gingrich.

Of course, the conservative Republican presidential contender is no friend of labour or social justice; he recently proposed that poor children be schooled in the ways of free enterprise by being hired to clean school washrooms.

Nonetheless, Gingrich, one of the stars of the Republican freak show, is desperate to defeat front-runner Mitt Romney. With the mitts off, Gingrich is denouncing Romney’s background as a Wall Street corporate raider, accusing him of practising a form of capitalism where “you basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers.”

The multi-millionaire Romney showed his empathy for working people by noting, in a discussion about private health care, that “I like being able to fire people who provide services” and insisting that comments about the rich having too much money should be confined to “quiet rooms.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has filed suit against President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes controversial provisions authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world, without charge or trial. Sections of the bill are written so broadly that critics say they could encompass journalists who report on terror-related issues, such as Hedges, for supporting enemy forces. "It is clearly unconstitutional," Hedges says of the bill. "It is a huge and egregious assault against our democracy. It overturns over 200 years of law, which has kept the military out of domestic policing." We speak with Hedges, now a senior fellow at the Nation Institute and former New York Times foreign correspondent who was part of a team of reporters that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. We are also joined by Hedges’ attorney Carl Mayer, who filed the litigation on his behalf in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Video
Source: Dmocracy Now!

Opening of specialized schools reignites fairness debate

The Toronto District School Board’s suite of nine boutique schools, including all-boys, all-girls, sports-focused and music-focused academies, opened to enrolment Monday after two years of debate.

The move has reignited the discussion about whether alternative schools create unequal access to special programs in public education. Such concerns recently prompted the York Region District School Board to review its policy: Students must audition to attend its Arts at Baythorn elementary program and some trustees feel tryouts are not equitable, said Ross Virgo, the board’s spokesman.

The board is considering a new equity policy that would restrict elementary schools from offering additional programs not required by Queen’s Park, other than French immersion.

The TDSB schools won’t require an audition, and if demand exceeds the number of spots, admissions will be determined by lottery. Director of education, Chris Spence, will reveal more details at a news conference Tuesday.

Research suggests that high-needs students are less likely to take advantage of specialized programs. They often require long commutes, and highly involved parents who know how to navigate the system, said Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education. “There’s a concern that this creates social polarization,” she said. “It assumes that choice and competition make everything better.”

But specialized schools are popular with parents, and can be a boon to schools with low enrolment by attracting students from outside the community.

In York Region, parents have rallied in support of the Arts at Baythorn, circulating a petition and writing letters to the Ministry of Education. The equity policy is open to public feedback for the next three months online and delegations can present their cases at the YRDSB on Jan. 24 and Feb. 21.

OCI wins injunction against former Marystown workers

Ocean Choice International has been granted a court injunction, ordering former workers at the Marystown fish-processing plant to allow company officials access to the facility.

The former workers have been protesting outside the plant around the clock since it was closed in early December. They have been on a public road leading to the plant since Dec. 22.

Judge Deborah Fry said the protesters can remain, but she ruled that they cannot stop OCI officials from accessing the company’s property. She also said the former workers can not trespass onto OCI’s property

Fry dismissed the union's argument that the company must be prevented from removing equipment from the Marystown plant.

In court last week, the workers’ lawyer said they believe the plant is less likely to ever reopen if equipment is removed from it.

Fry said the union did not give any reason why the company should not be able to enter its own plant.

Original Article
Source: CBC

Occupy Protesters Gathering At Capitol

WASHINGTON -- Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement will meet outside the Capitol in Washington for what participants hope will become the largest gathering of Occupy activists from around the country.

Participants say they plan to decry the influence of corporate money in politics and show the House of Representatives what real democracy looks like. The House reconvenes Tuesday after its winter recess.

The protest comes as the nation's capital has emerged as one of the strongest bastions of the Occupy movement, in part because the National Park Service has allowed protesters to maintain their encampments in two public squares near the White House.

Participants say the daylong demonstration will be peaceful, although it's possible some will risk arrest.

Original Article
Source: Huff

Geert Wilders Says There's No Such Thing as Moderate Islam

A couple of years ago, a billboard appeared outside Columbia, S.C., looming above Interstate 26. Beady eyes stared out from a black balaclava emblazoned with an inscription from the Quran—clearly the eyes were meant to be those of a terrorist—and next to them were these words: “ISLAM RISING ... BE WARNED.”

Erected by the Virginia-based Christian Action Network, the sign advertised the group’s documentary about a charismatic Dutch politician with dyed-blond hair, a mysterious past, and a platform of paranoid hate. South Carolina seemed to offer a ready audience for Geert Wilders’s dire warnings against the Muslim religion. Today, with the Republican road show encamped in the state for the Jan. 21 presidential primary, the 48-year-old Dutchman is more than ever a man who needs to be watched and listened to carefully. At home in the Netherlands, his explosive theme of unrelenting hostility to Islam has built his xenophobic Party for Freedom, founded in 2005, into the country’s third-largest political party; across the Atlantic his message packs serious resonance in an American heartland still shaken by the 9/11 attacks. Wilders’s name and message have been invoked repeatedly in South Carolina and at least a dozen other state legislatures as they debate measures to ban an imagined threat: Islamic law.

So does he worry about the violence his rants could inspire? Wilders is a master at capitalizing on real fears and conjuring false ones—and then dodging responsibility if people’s lives are ruined or lost. “I am responsible for my own actions and for nobody else’s actions,” he says. In a wide-ranging interview at the offices of the Dutch Parliament in The Hague, Wilders complained to Newsweek that the “naive” Obama administration wasn’t doing nearly enough to combat what Wilders regards as the Islamic threat. Expanding on his claims that the Quran should be banned, just as Mein Kampf has been in some countries, he said the United States should be “getting rid of Islamic symbols—no more mosques—and closing down Islamic schools.”

There’s no such thing as moderate Islam, Wilders insists, and he’s tired of hearing that radical Islam is something different from the mainstream faith. It means nothing to him that among Muslim believers there are many different sects and currents. “He makes no distinctions whatsoever,” says Robert Leiken, author of the just-published study Europe’s Angry Muslims. “He wants to throw out the whole Quran because of some things that are objectionable—but you could say the same thing about the Book of Joshua.” Wilders refuses to concede the point. In his view, those who follow the Quran are deluded or worse. “Totalitarian fascist ideology,” he calls it. “I have nothing against the people,” he says. “I have something against Islam.”

Bush tax cuts helped the rich get richer

WHILE FEW QUESTION the fact that income inequality has risen in the United States over the past three decades, there is plenty of dispute about why. Some argue that the upward shift in after-tax income reflects a high-tech society’s increasing rewards to highly skilled workers, or the rise of super-paid “superstars” in everything from finance to sports, or the decline of labor unions and the minimum wage.

Another concern is that the lighter federal taxation of capital gains and other investment income relative to ordinary income has skewed income distribution upward. This is related to the so-called “Buffett Rule,” whereby the Omaha billionaire (and former Washington Post Co. board member) Warren Buffett pays income tax at a lower effective rate than his secretary does, largely because so much of his income comes from investments.

Now comes evidence that this is, indeed, at least part of the story. A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service shows that, between 1996 and 2006, the share of total after-tax income attributable to dividends and capital gains grew by 40 percent, faster than any other category. Earned mostly by the well-to-do, investment income was the largest contributor to the increase in income inequality between 1996 and 2006, according to CRS.

The tax cuts enacted at the urging of President George W. Bush magnified what CRS calls the “disequalizing” impact of this shift. The 1986 tax reform eliminated the gap between the ordinary and capital gains rates. The gap began to widen again during President Bill Clinton’s second term, but the Bush tax cuts of 2003 blew it wide open by slicing the top rate on dividends and long-term capital gains from 28 percent to 15 percent. The tax code as of 2006 was still progressive, in that top earners paid a greater share of their income to Washington than everyone else. But thanks largely to the more favorable treatment of investment income, the code was significantly less progressive in 2006 than it was in 1996, CRS found.

Is the Canada-European Trade Agreement Helping or Hurting?

My town of London, Ontario has an odd feeling of being under siege. The deterioration of the manufacturing sector that made up a significant part of our productive capacity has left us with one of the country's highest levels of unemployment. In a phrase, we're feeling vulnerable.

Add to this mix Caterpillar Inc. and its threat to close down its Electro-Motive plant unless the workers accept an immediate wage cut of over 50 per cent and you can see why we're feeling a little punchy at the moment. Local citizens are increasingly expressing outrage at what they feel is the destructive greed of modern capitalism.

The ability for modern municipalities to respond to such draconian tactics has been limited. Sadly, they are about to face another blow that could undercut any hoped-for recovery. Worse still, it has the potential to limit any chance local communities might have to offset poor federal policy.

The Canada-European Trade Agreement continues to fly under the radar, in part because its main proponents are hoping Canadians don't take too much interest. For any citizen that lives in a community hoping to track its own destiny this could be a game changer.

There remains a distinct possibility that cities might be prohibited, as a result of the deal, from procuring their own supplies or labour. This could well mean that municipalities would have little ability to dig themselves out of difficult economic times or policies from more senior levels of government that could prove detrimental.

In London, Ontario we have recently adopted a Food Charter, designed to limit environmental waste by emphasizing local policies. As the director of the food bank here this is an immensely important sustainable step in the right direction that could suddenly be stripped away should the CETA deal pass and no exceptions are made for local communities where Canadian people live and attempt to work out their civic life.

Overview

The recession and resulting public deficits have put a spotlight on public sector pay and compensation levels. Many governments have enacted pay freezes, pay constraints and are proceeding with contracting out of public services, partly on the perception that public sector workers are consistently paid more than those working in comparative jobs in the private sector.

This study uses the most detailed comprehensive data available on earnings by occupation and finds the reality is quite different. Overall average pay in the public sector is very similar to pay for comparable occupations in the private sector. Public sector pay is also considerably more equitable, whether measured by gender, age, occupational group or by region.

Key Findings:

Overall average pay levels for comparable occupations between public and private sector employers are very similar. Average annual pay in the public sector was $49,655, 0.5 per cent higher than the private sector average of $49,407.
This public sector “pay premium” is entirely because of a smaller pay gap for women in the public sector. This is partly the result of stronger pay equity rules in the public sector.
- Women in the public sector were paid an average of 4.5 per cent more than women in similar occupations in the private sector: $45,821 compared to $43,841 in the private sector.
- Men in the public sector were paid 5.3 per cent less on average than men in similar occupations in the private sector: $57,318 compared to $60,531 in the private sector.
Women are still paid less than men in similar occupations in the public sector, but face a smaller pay gap than women in the private sector.
If women in the public sector were paid the same as women working in similar jobs in the private sector, they would receive an average of $1,980 less per year, significantly increasing their pay gap.
These findings—less of a pay gap for women and lower average pay for men than in the private sector—are consistent for all different levels of government and major areas of the broader public sector: federal, provincial, local, health and social services, and education.
Public sector pay isn’t just more equitable for women; it’s also consistently more equitable across all major occupational groups, age groups, and regions.
Pay differences between the public and private sectors are more significant for occupations at the top and bottom of the pay scales.
- Those working in lower paid occupations—such as cleaning, food preparation, clerks—are generally better paid in the public sector than in the private sector.
- Higher paid occupations—such as managers, lawyers and accountants—tend to be paid considerably less in the public sector than in the private sector.
- These differences would be even more stark if occupations with even larger differences had not been excluded through data quality filtering in this analysis.
Information on the additional cost of pensions and benefits are not available on a consistent basis by occupation. However, Statistics Canada data on all supplementary labour income, including pensions and benefits, indicate these costs average 4.6 per cent more in major public sector industries than in the private sector.

Conclusions:

Overall average pay in the public sector is very similar to pay for comparable occupations in the private sector, but it is far more equitable, whether measured by gender, age, occupational group or by region.

This report highlights an important question: what should be the norm for pay in the public sector?

If public sector wages and salaries followed private sector standards, the result would not only be a larger pay gap for women, but also greater inequalities across occupational groups, regions and age groups, with lower wages for the lowest paid and significant pay hikes for those at the top.

Public sector wages should reflect broader Canadian values. Wage disparities have grown too large. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Conference Board of Canada have recently raised concern about the negative economic impact of growing wage and income inequality in Canada.

Original Article
Source: Cupa.ca

Occupy Davos's Igloo Camp Sounds Cold, Influential

Rachel Maddow's blog team predicted this would happen way back on Halloween day, but Occupy is finally getting igloos. The funny thing about igloos is that they're predictably difficult to build -- they're made of ice, after all -- but surprisingly, pleasingly warm. On Monday, a group of activists identifying themselves as Occupy Davos "unveiled their igloo accommodation" at the anticipated destination of the annual meeting in Switzerland of "the rich and powerful people," to borrow a couple of quotes from Reuters' story about the planned protest. This is going to be fun to watch for at least three reasons:

Switzerland is really cold this time of year. As mentioned, igloos are a particularly warm dwelling made of ice, but they are made of ice. And the idea of an Occupy camp made of igloos is intriguing, given all of the commentary from Occupy Davos's older sibling protest in New York City -- we're referring to Occupy Wall Street, of course -- about how the movement stands to suffer at the hands of Father Winter. As Maddow Blog mainstay Laura Conaway suggested in October Occupy types are pretty optimistic about the chances of the movement surviving the freezing cold, despite anti-Occupy types naysaying the notion. In igloos, it seems, the protesters can stay pretty toasty.
Igloos are hilarious. They are, let's admit it. However, they're easier to build than those complicated camping tents -- see below -- and much harder for police to destroy.
Davos is an even more meaningful destination than Wall Street. Yes, Occupy started on Wall Street, and the street is now synonymous with the One Percent that the 99 Percerters are hoping to expose. It's hard to think of a more One Percent-friendly place that Davos. It's a ski resort in Switzerland! Probably really close to where everybody is hiding their money from the tax man! In conclusion: if the activists are trying to make a meaningful statement by occupying (pun, unavoidable) a meaningful space, they've succeeded.

Original Article
Source: the Atlantic Wire

1 in 10 can't afford prescription meds: Study

OTTAWA — As premiers from around the country gather in Victoria to discuss health care, a news study out of the University of British Columbia finds that one in 10 Canadians can't afford their prescription medication.

According to the UBC researchers, two-thirds of the population pays for prescription drugs out-of-pocket — to the tune of $4.6 billion in 2010.

"I think for the vast majority of Canadians that have drug plans . . . almost all of which require them to pay at least a part of the cost of the prescription drugs that they receive," UBC's Michael Law said. "So that puts prescription drugs on the table in terms of trading off."

He said this leads some people to decide that the cost of the medication is more that they can afford.

"Do we really want people trading their prescriptions off against their food?" Law said.

When people decide not to take their prescription drugs, it sets of the possibility that they are putting themselves at further risk of illness — putting a potentially higher burden on the health-care system.

In their findings, the researchers found that uninsured, low-income individuals had a 35 per cent chance of not paying for their medications, compared to less than four per cent of high-income insured people.

OTTAWA — Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver turned down the rhetorical volume Monday in defending the oilpatch against criticism from the environmental movement.

Oliver, in a speech at a University of Toronto alumni dinner, reiterated the federal government's concern over opposition to the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline linking Alberta's oilsands to Asian markets via a northern British Columbia port.

But he didn't once label opponents as "radical" and made no reference to foreign funding of the B.C. environmental movement.

Oliver was criticized by B.C. aboriginal leaders and other groups for appearing to paint the opposition to the megaproject with a single brush.

"Our government will not sit back and have Canada's international reputation sullied by people who cannot or will not acknowledge the facts," he said in the text of a speech made available to Postmedia News earlier Monday.

"The oilsands are just too important to Canada and the world to do otherwise. Uninformed criticism and, on occasion, ideologically motivated opposition is putting the timely development of this globally strategic asset at risk."

Last week, in a statement issued on the eve of the start of National Energy Board hearings into the project in Kitimat, B.C., Oliver said he worried "environmental and radical groups" would "hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda."

Nick Clegg is demanding a "tax the rich" Budget in March to head off growing fears that the Coalition will lose public support because its deficit-reduction programme is seen as unfair on ordinary families.

The Liberal Democrats are urging George Osborne to include a mansion tax on homes worth £2m and measures to stop the rich avoiding stamp duty when they sell their properties by transferring ownership to a shell company.

Although it is thought the Chancellor is unlikely to introduce a high-value property tax immediately, he may set up a review to look at raising the tax burden on the rich by targeting property assets rather than income, which would be harder to avoid. Mr Osborne is likely to act on stamp duty, amid evidence that rich people reduce the 5 per cent stamp duty on the sale of homes worth £1m to only 0.5 per cent by placing their property in a company.

Mr Clegg and other Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers will make their demands in behind-the-scenes talks with Mr Osborne before his Budget on 21 March. Other Liberal Democrat proposals include a tax on land values and scrapping the 40 per cent tax relief on pension contributions for higher-rate taxpayers. They also want a new crackdown on "non-domiciles" – foreign residents living in Britain who do not pay tax on their overseas earnings.

Today, Mr Clegg will join the debate about "responsible capitalism" before a speech on "moral markets" by David Cameron later this week. The Deputy Prime Minister will call for millions of workers to own shares in their companies in a new "John Lewis economy".

A source close to Mr Clegg said: "Nick is pushing his government colleagues for real, early, radical action on this. Employee ownership is part of a long liberal tradition."

Senior Liberal Democrats are worried public support for spending cuts could melt away unless the rich shoulder more of the burden.

Higher taxes for the rich are popular with the public and the Liberal Democrats do not want to be defined in the year ahead by their pro-European stance, which is not supported by a majority of voters. They believe the Tories might be persuaded to act on property values because opinion polls suggest they are seen by many voters as "a party for the rich" rather than "people like us." To increase the pressure on Mr Osborne, some Liberal Democrats plan to join Labour to try to bring in a mansion tax if it is not included in the Budget.

Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, a Liberal Democrat peer and close ally of the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, said: "A mansion tax is the real test of whether the Coalition means business on fair taxation. You can't claim 'we are all in it together' when wealth is virtually untaxed."

Original Article
Source: Independent

"Internet Censorship Affects Everybody": Rebecca MacKinnon on the Global Struggle for Online Freedom

As protests mount against two controversial internet anti-piracy bills moving through Congress, we speak with Rebecca MacKinnon, author of the forthcoming book, "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom." "If we want democracy to survive in the internet age, we really need to work to make sure that the internet evolves in a manner that is compatible with democracy," MacKinnon says. "And that means exercising our power, not only as consumers and internet users and investors, but also as voters to make sure that our digital lives contain the same kind of protections of our rights that we expect in physical space." She argues that for every empowering story of the internet’s role, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments. [Rush transcript to come.

Video
Source: Democracy Now!

Wikipedia, Reddit to Shut Down Sites Wednesday to Protest Proposed Stop Online Piracy Act

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia and sixth most visited site in the world, will join websites like the content aggregator Reddit to "go dark" on Wednesday in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are currently being debated in Congress. "What these bills propose are new powers for the government and also for private actors to create, effectively, blacklists of sites that allegedly are engaging in some form of online infringement and then force service providers to block access to those sites," says Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "What we would have is a situation where the government and private actors could censor the net." Chief technology officials in the Obama administration have expressed concern about any "legislation that...undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." But the bills’ main backers—Hollywood movie studios and music publishers—want to stop the theft of their creative content, and the bills have widespread bipartisan support. A vote on SOPA is on hold in the House now, as the Senate is still scheduled vote on PIPA next Tuesday.

Video
Source: Democracy Now!

Northern Gateway Pipeline: Harper Says Canada Won't Be America's 'Giant National Park'

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn't want the future of Northern Gateway pipeline to be decided by "certain" people in the United States who would like to see Canada be one giant national park.

Harper told CBC's Peter Mansbridge that it is in Canada's interest to sell its energy exports to Asia and the rising tension over Iran's nuclear ambitions should show the United States that it needs to cut its dependence on Middle East oil.

"When you look at the Iranians threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, I think that just illustrates how critical it is that supply for the United States be North America," Harper told the CBC in a television interview.

Harper said he has raised the alarm bells about Iran's nuclear ambitions with Canada's allies while urging them to take firmer action beyond the sanctions now imposed on Tehran.

The proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline from Alberta to northwest B.C., will allow Alberta's oil to be loaded onto tankers and shipped down the West Coast to Asian and American markets.

Any decision on developments such as the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline should be left to Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says.

"It's one thing in terms of whether Canadians, you know, want jobs, to what degree Canadians want environmental protection. These are all valid questions," Harper said in an exclusive interview Monday with CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge.

"But just because certain people in the United States would like to see Canada be one giant national park for the northern half of North America, I don't think that's part of what our review process is all about."

The $5.5-billion Northern Gateway project is a proposal by Canadian oil and gas company Enbridge to build two pipelines stretching 1,177 kilometres between the Alberta oilsands and the West Coast. The Northern Gateway would have the capacity to transport 525,000 barrels of oil per day.

Just before hearings on the project began, Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver raised the issue of foreign money going to environmental groups earlier this month. The groups say they get a small amount of funding from outside of Canada and that the government is trying to refocus the debate when much of the investment in the oilsands comes from outside of Canada.

"I don’t object to foreigners expressing their opinion," Harper told CBC News. "But I don’t want them to be able to hijack the process so that we don’t make a decision that's timely or in the interests of Canadians."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says a consensus is growing among world leaders that Iran would have no hesitation using nuclear arms once they develop the weapons and the capability to deliver them.

“I’ve watched and listened to what the leadership in the Iran regime says, and it frightens me,” Mr. Harper said in a CBC interview.

“In my judgment, these are people who have a particular, you know, fanatically religious worldview, and their statements imply to me no hesitation of using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes,” he said.

Asked why world leaders are not doing more about it, Mr. Harper said a consensus among world leaders has been growing “at least privately.”

Mr. Harper acknowledged that the current round of sanctions is not dissuading the Iranian regime from developing “the nuclear course.” However, the world remains uncertain about what exactly to do, he said.

Every country agrees on sanctions and is imposing sanctions “at some level,” he said. “Beyond that, these are not easy questions for the world,” he said.

Military action has been discussed, Mr. Harper added. “President [Barack] Obama’s said all options are on the table and I can certainly tell you that, when we talk about these issues, we talk about the full range of questions around these issues.