It's interesting Darryl.
Reading the post here (and being a senior citizen on a fixed income that is unable to rise with the other incomes around me,) I'm reminded of everyone explaining what's happening as if it makes a difference to me. Or better still that dentist doing the root canal for an hour and half with my mouth full of instruments and not even the ability to spit. (Where does the claustrophobia kick in and the desire to lash out it all take over?) You make a good point about the explainers versus the exploders. The stiff upper lip or the fist in the mouth or the farmers from Brittany who had flags for each army (that marched through) that they waved on cue as they just got out of the way and protected their own. It's an interesting marriage you folks have up North and it's my understanding you're adding other new groups regularly to the mix. The thing I find most interesting is the upside down of "liberal." Fighting words down South from you. In Canada Liberal is right wing while in the U.S. its left wing while both continue to express it in English. Sort of like the difference between the word "Fanny" in England and "Fanny" in America. It's rather important to know the domain you are in. Somehow the specifics of the Professor seems strangely irrelevant when it comes to the solution. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D & N Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 11:16 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Quebec's 'Truncheon Law' Rebounds as Student Strike Spreads For Crane: as Arthur has suggested, the students were not violent in the first march. Now, after these heavy handed tactics of a government bent on a totalitarian line, there is violence and, I predict, there will be more. When laws are instituted that (again) show the governments lack of willingness to negotiate (and in this vein they have also attacked unions without warrant - almost as an aside to get another leg up on them) by the imposition of heavy fines and the seizure of union dues ending with dissolution of said union, there can only be one reaction by people already pressed - it is emotional . The challenges in court will likely fail as the courts are there to uphold laws - good or bad - that have been instituted. French (or Quebecois) are passionate and volatile; preferring to make themselves heard, square off and take their chances in a fight. English (or Anglophones) are subservient and more or less the sheeple of Huxley's mind; those who bleat nervously in the midst of the wolves and hope that another will be louder and so taken instead of them. For Ray: Also, it is a gambit that Charest hopes will end in violence as then he can call on the military through the office of the Harpie to take over the streets and Canada will be another step closer to a totalitarian corporate oligarchy with the Anglophonie serfs propping the corporate overlords. Once the army is set up in Quebec, it is unlikely to be able to break away. Aside - gee oil is in the $90 range where it was 4 years ago but the price at the pumps is 40 cents higher (about a 42% increase in price to the consumer)...Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm praise the overlords of industry. I guess the U.S. needs to wage another war to get the prices up by pouring it all into military fuel. D. On 25/05/2012 7:29 AM, Ray Harrell wrote: Might be a Charles de Gaulle in their someplace. It's happened before. Might Canada break up before the U.S.? REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Friday, May 25, 2012 10:20 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Quebec's 'Truncheon Law' Rebounds as Student Strike Spreads I think there is a division of opinion in Quebec. Anglophones seem to still be continuing their studies, while francophones are out in the streets. Also a division between old and young, both anglo and franco. Two things to consider: the first protest and the second protest in reaction to the new law. The second protest is bringing in many from all parts of the population, or so it seems. Don't see how this can end in a peaceful way. arthur -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of michael gurstein Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 11:15 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Quebec's 'Truncheon Law' Rebounds as Student Strike Spreads Interesting how opinions especially in the ROC seem so strongly polarized on this. I`m wondering if they are as strongly polarized in Quebec (the article seems to hint that they are not, that there is significant public support... If so, I`m wondering what this means and particularly what it means for the future of Quebec in Canada. M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:07 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; michael gurstein Cc: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Quebec's 'Truncheon Law' Rebounds as Student Strike Spreads Breaking store windows, throwing bricks at police, blocking traffic and preventing people from going to work (or to the hospital) and setting cars on fire is not about freedom of speech. Quoting michael gurstein <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]>: Quebec's 'Truncheon Law' Rebounds as Student Strike Spreads A draconian law to quell demonstrations has only galvanised public support for young Quebecois protesting tuition fee hikes by Martin Lukacs Guardian (UK) May 24, 2012 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/24/quebec- trunch eon-law-rebounds-student-strike At a tiny church tucked away in a working-class neighbourhood in Montreal's east end, Quebec's new outlaws gathered on Sunday for a day of deliberations. Aged mostly between 18 and 22, their membership in a progressive student union has made them a target of government scorn and scrutiny. And they have been branded a menace to society because of their weapons: ideas of social justice and equal opportunity in education, alongside the ability to persuade hundreds of thousands to join them in the streets. Under a draconian law passed by the Quebec government on Friday, their very meeting could be considered a criminal act. Law 78 - unprecedented in recent Canadian history - is the latest, most desperate manoeuvre of a provincial government that is afraid it has lost control over a conflict that began as a student strike against tuition hikes but has since spread into a protest movement with wide-ranging social and environmental demands. Labelled a "truncheon law" by its critics, it imposes severe restrictions on the right to protest. Any group of 50 or more protesters must submit plans to police eight hours ahead of time; they can be denied the right to proceed. Picket lines at universities and colleges are forbidden, and illegal protests are punishable by fines from $5,000 to $125,000 for individuals and unions - as well as by the seizure of union dues and the dissolution of their associations. In other words, the government has decided to smash the student movement by force. The government quickly launched a public relations offensive to defend itself. Full-page ads in local newspapers ran with the headline: "For the sake of democracy and citizenship." Quebec's minister of public security, Robert Dutil, prattled about the many countries that have passed similar laws: "Other societies with rights and freedoms to protect have found it reasonable to impose certain constraints - first of all to protect protesters, and also to protect the public." Such language is designed to make violence sound benevolent and infamy honourable. But it did nothing to mask reality for those who have flooded the streets since the weekend and encountered police emboldened by the new legislation. Riot squads beat and tear-gassed people indiscriminately, targeted journalists, pepper- sprayed bystanders in restaurants, and mass-arrested hundreds, including more than 500 Wednesday night - bringing the tally from the last three months of protest to a record Canadian high of more than 2,500. The endless night-time drone of helicopters has become the serenade song of a police state. In its contempt for students and citizens, the government has riled a population with strong, bitter memories of harsh measures against social unrest - whether the dark days of the iron-fisted Duplessis era, the martial law enforced by the Canadian army in 1970, or years of labour battles marred by the jailing of union leaders. These and other occasions have shown Québécois how the political elite has no qualms about trampling human rights to maintain a grip on power. Which is why those with experience of struggle fresh and old have answered Premier Jean Charest with unanimity and collective power. There are now legal challenges in the works, broad appeals for civil disobedience, and a brilliant website created by the progressive CLASSE student union, on which thousands have posted photos of themselves opposing the law. (The website's title is "Somebody arrest me" but also puns on a phrase to shake a person out of a crazed mental spell.) And Wednesday, on the 100th day of the student strike, Québécois from every walk of life offered a rejoinder to the claim that "marginals" were directing and dominating the protests: an estimated 300,000-400,000 people marched in the streets, another Canadian record, and in full violation of the new law. They brandished the iconic red squares that have now transformed into a symbol not just of accessible education but the defence of basic freedoms of assembly and protest. Late into the night, a spirit of jubilant defiance spread through the city. On balconies along entire streets, and on intersections occupied by young and old, the sound of banging pots and pans rang out, a practice used under Latin American regimes. The clarity that has fired the students' protest has, until now, conspicuously eluded most of English- speaking Canada. This is because the image of the movement has been skewed and distorted by the establishment media. Sent into paroxysms of bafflement and contempt by the striking students, they have painted them as spoiled kids or crazed radicals out of touch with society, who should give up their supposed entitlements and accept the stark economic realities of the age. All this is said with a straight face. But young people in Quebec, followed now by many others, have not been fooled. They know the global economic crisis of 2008 exposed as never before the abuses of corporate finance, and that those responsible were bailed out rather than held to account. They know that meetings of international leaders at the G20 end by dispatching ministers home to pay the bills on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable, with tuition hikes and a toxic combination of neoliberal economic policies. And with every baton blow and tear-gas blast, they perceive with ever greater lucidity that their government will turn ultimately to brute violence to impose such programs and frighten those who dissent. To those who marched Wednesday, and the great numbers who cheered them on, the fault-lines of justice are evident. This is a government that has refused to sit down and negotiate with student leaders in good faith, but invites an organised crime boss to a fundraising breakfast; a government that has claimed free education is an idea not even worth dreaming about, when it would cost only 1% of Quebec's budget and could be paid for simply by reversing the regressive tax reforms, corporate give-aways, or capital tax phase-outs of the last decade; a government whose turn to authoritarian tactics has now triggered a sharp decline in support, and which has clumsily accelerated a social crisis that may now only begin to be resolved by meeting the students' demands. As the debate went on at the CLASSE meeting in the church last Sunday, the students' foresight proved wise beyond their years. "History doesn't get made in a day," one argued into the microphone. Not in a day, no doubt, but in Quebec, over this spring and the summer, history is indeed being made. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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