Recently there has been a flurry of outrage concerning the fact that some very wealthy individuals, notably Mitt Romney, pay Federal taxes at the 15% middle class rate, because of a law that put a cap of 15% on taxes on capital gains and qualified investment income. Before jumping on a bandwagon calling for a repeal of the law, people need to understand something of its history and how it operates.

In its initial form the law took effect in 1997, during the Clinton Administration. While the Congress that framed it had a Republican majority, there was no notable opposition from the Democratic side. Part of the rationale was to encourage investment, and in particular to encourage people to sell stagnant investments and reinvest the proceeds in the most actively growing parts of the economy.

In its initial form, the law benefited only the well-to do, as I discovered when I filled out my 1997 income taxes. I had sold some appreciated stock to finance a friend’s mortgage, a move which produced substantial capital gains on paper, but my total income was still in the 15% bracket and I had difficulty paying the taxes since the effective income I had to live on was much less than what I was being taxed on. At that point, the tax structure encouraged reinvestment and portfolio management at upper income levels but still made it difficult for people in the middle.

At some point between 1997 and 2004 the law was modified to give people in the 15% bracket a break on capital gains and investment income as well. The typical person in this category is a retiree liquidating an investment portfolio to maintain a middle-class standard of living. That portfolio is the person’s retirement savings, and while in most cases no real sacrifice was involved in accumulating it, it does represent the sort of prudent financial management society would hopefully like to encourage. Some of the capital gains is simply the result of inflation. People have based their retirement savings strategies in part on the existing tax structure, and don’t have the flexibility the tycoons have to move funds around in anticipation of legislation.

Before using a few conspicuous examples of very wealthy individuals who are favored by the tax system as the rationale for trashing a law that also benefits people in more modest circumstances, I would like to see a breakdown of the numbers of individuals and dollar amounts involved under the current tax structure, and be very certain that either (a) the modifications to the law preserved the tax break for middle-class retirees, or that (b) the people who supported the law were clear that they wanted to saddle this large demographic with an unanticipated and potentially burdensome tax liability. I would also hope that the law was free of the sort of loopholes that would enable the very wealthy, who were allegedly being targeted, to escape a large chunk of the effects.

Photo Credit:

“Weishaupt.”  Flickr Creative Commons.   Some rights reserved by illpig

Capital Gains Tax Breaks – Not Just for the Rich is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Every year, the American electoral process plays an increasing role in undermining the very system it was set up to sustain. There seems to be little doubt in the mind of the average American that Congress is not serving the needs of the general public particularly well. The role that well-heeled special interests play in the selection process has correctly been identified as a major factor in Congressional unresponsiveness to the public good.

There is a widespread perception that a major overhaul of campaign financing would go a long way towards remedying the situation. I personally doubt that this is the case. For one thing, a good deal of so-called campaign finance legislation has already been enacted, to no avail. If anything, the workings of those laws that do exist have been perverse. This is perhaps not surprising, given that the task of reform is entrusted to a body that is acknowledged to be manipulated if not controlled by the very forces one is trying to counteract.

However, even the most well-crafted and comprehensive election financing laws will not alter the fact that an incumbent running for re-election is prevented from being an effective and conscientious legislator, more or less in proportion to the intensity of the impending contest. For one thing, the time and resources he or she must devote to campaigning inevitably detract from the business of running the country, or state, or other entity. In the case of the U.S. House of Representatives, nearly a year of a two-year term must be devoted to effort and strategies for re-election.

Crisis situations affecting large segments of the public, in which category our nation’s continuing economic woes must surely be numbered, encourage lengthy bitterly fought political contests – in other words, at precisely that point when one would wish legislators to devote as much attention as possible to the business of addressing grave problems, their attention is dissipated in preserving their seats so that at some future date they can bring whatever vision and expertise they have to bear. It has been suggested that in the case of an incompetent legislator or one who is entirely controlled by special interests this paralysis is actually a good thing – but that amounts to admitting that the system is irremediably nonfunctional.

In an election year, a legislator’s actual lawmaking must necessarily be heavily influenced by the way the public will perceive the actions on Election Day. This encourages support of bills with short-term favorable effects and long-term negative consequences. For example, borrowing money to fund pork-barrel projects that provide temporary employment but neither create permanent jobs nor contribute much to the nation’s infrastructure or enacting feel-good social legislation which leaves the task of funding programs to states and employers are ways to look good to constituents provided the consequences can be deferred past election day.

Are American elections too frequent? Insightful British commentators in the early 19th Century, comparing a system in which Parliamentary elections normally occurred every seven years but there was a provision for dissolving Parliament early, thought so. A system in which members of one entire legislative house must spend nearly half of their time gearing their actions toward the whims of a public whose decisions are based, for the most part, on sound bytes, is not one calculated towards intelligent long term planning, or one capable of making hard but necessary decisions that risk short-term unpopularity.

Following the same general line of reasoning, I consider that term limits are an open invitation to increase the influence of special interests and the power of money in our legislative bodies. Arbitrarily ousting an individual who has, presumably through serving the voting public pretty well, contrived to be re-elected repeatedly, and replacing him or her with an unknown whose fidelity campaign promises has yet to be determined, is not a strategy for encouraging independence and profound thinking. A business that adopted such a personnel management strategy would be shooting itself in the foot.

It is worth considering that we might have a cleaner elections process, and one that selected for more statesmanlike political leaders, if we made elections less frequent, especially for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Further Reading

Politics, Law and Policy Blog  An Article concerning Georgia State legislature and views the lack of legislation in election years as a mixed bag.

Free Enterprise Magazine 

Washington Post  set of links on the debate over term limits.

Photo Credit:

Photo Is Public Domain

Election-Year Paralysis Cripples American Legislative Process is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Recently one of my political activist friends on Facebook, who is also a real life friend, posted a link to a sweeping proposal for reforming United States Congress which incorporated most of the rhetoric which has been circulating for decades concerning special interests, corporate control, the predilection of congressmen to grant themselves perquisites of which the average working person can only dream, inefficiency, lack of transparency, and outright corruption, and distilled it into a series of specific demands for action, some of which would require amendments to the United States Constitution. Before embarking on so drastic a step, it would be prudent to examine any evidence concerning the likelihood that such measures would have the intended result, and also what unintended consequences might ensue.

That the United States Congress as presently constituted represents the average American poorly is scarcely to be questioned. It is also evident that most aspects of Congressional responsiveness and accountability have gotten considerably worse over the last fifty years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations and with varying mixes of majorities in both Houses. A lot of effort has been expended during that time period to correct that situation – to constantly refining boundaries of representative districts, to removing barriers to voting such as literacy tests, to encouraging women and minority candidates to run for office, to feeble efforts at campaign finance reform, to regulating media so that one candidate is not able to exclude rivals who are less well-heeled, and so forth. None of this effort has produced more responsive legislators, ones genuinely accountable to the majority of people who elected them.

When one is lost without a compass, literally or figuratively, plowing on ahead at full tilt in the same direction is seldom a good idea. A better strategy is to retrace your steps to the last point at which you were reasonably certain you were on the right path, carefully examine the situation as it stood at that point, and re-plot your itinerary from there, using the lessons learned during the time you were off course

I have a habit of thinking which I call “running it past my 1812 brain” which consists of rephrasing a problem – whether in my personal life or in the world at large – as if it were occurring in 1812 and then letting the British House of Commons debate it in light of their experience in the years 1812-1822. I’ve read all the debates in question. They are as rich a source of thinking on legislative, economic and social issues as the peace settlement at the Congress of Vienna, which formed the basis for Henry Kissinger’s Doctoral dissertation, is for broader issues of foreign policy.

Parliamentary reform was a hotly debated issue at the time. Many of the proposals had already been put in motion across the Atlantic when the United States Constitution was adopted, and many were subsequently adopted in Britain through the Reform Act of 1832 and after. Sufficient time has passed to analyze whether various reform measures resulted in an increase or decrease in legislative responsiveness to the population at large. This is a difficult thing to measure, of course, but there are a number of things that could be cited tending to support the contention that it did not. The increasing concentration of wealth and stagnating or even declining standard of living among the working classes between 1832 and 1860, and the fact that there were severe famines in Ireland in 1816-17, 1822, and 1844-46, but only the last caused massive mortality, might be mentioned.

There are a number of characteristics of unreformed Parliament that made it less representative on paper but seem to have produced a body of legislators who were more responsive to the long-term well-being of their country than American Congress is at present. In 1817 they managed to defuse a high level of social unrest that threatened to escalate into revolution, spawned by a poor harvest and the world’s first industrial depression, and did so without permanently altering the laws that guaranteed individual freedom, incurring massive debt, or killing or imprisoning very many people. The social reform legislation passed at the time was quite limited in scope but was well thought out and performed as expected. In retrospect, it is hard to identify any major piece of legislation passed during this period, which was conspicuously unwise or had vastly different effects from its stated purpose.

The House of Commons in 1812 was unquestionably less representative, in raw numbers, than it was after 1833 or than the American House of Representatives as a whole was at any time in history. Even in the most open constituencies only male heads of household voted. Some constituencies had very limited franchises, and their populations varied all over the map. Theoretically a person could vote in as many places as he owned property, and a person could represent any constituency where he owned property. The existence of small “rotten boroughs” encouraged independence, because a man who took an unpopular stance he believed was for the long-term good of the country and was defeated in a large popular borough or county had the option of persuading the voters in a smaller place to support him, and it didn’t have to be his place of primary residence. At the time it was argued that the level of special interest control was higher in rotten boroughs than in popular constituencies, but the voting records don’t bear that out. Special interests are always going to have some say in legislative elections. This system gave proportionately more representation to those interests that didn’t have deep pockets.

Taking steps to improve the economic position and educational level of an underclass before granting them more political autonomy seems to result in better long-term results for the underclass and society as a whole than granting more political autonomy and trusting that the votes of the newly enfranchised underclass will produce economic and social policies that improve their relative position. Given this, restricting the franchise somewhat at the national level is worth exploring as a means of reducing demagoguery. Our forbears marched to the banner of “no taxation without representation.” Should we be considering “no representation without taxation?”

Further Reading

Common Good Coalition: Reforming Congress

Why 435?

Photo Credits

Feature Image – View of Capitol Hill from the U.S. Supreme Court – Creative Commons

British House Of Commons – Public Domain

United States Capitol – Public Domain

Reforming Congress – A Reactionary Approach is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Just like the French and American revolutions, the Occupy Wall Street Movement is motivated by the need for change in world equity and is inspired by hope, equality and freedom.

What was the clear plan of the French Revolution? In fact what was the clear plan of the American Revolution?

Looking back we have found words and documents which seemed inspirational to these epoch changing moments in time but to be clear, there was no clear plan to these revolutions, there never can be, they are simply about the need for change. There is a guiding principle to all revolutions and most social movements which is the desire for the removal of inequity from within a society. This is the clear plan now coursing through the web.

Those who control the media are trying to discredit The Occupy Wall Street Movement by mentioning in every mainstream media article and broadcast, the lack of a ‘clear plan’ or ‘defined agenda’ for the protests. The strength of the movement is, in fact, the fact that no leaders with single purpose can be found (to discredit like Wiki Leaks) nor can any single location (like Zuccotti or Liberty Park,) be isolated (like Tiananmen Square) to focus the strength of the state against.

New social movements are arising based on simple, human desires and needs which can never be extinguished, such as hope, equality and freedom. The fact that the democratic process has become a hollow sham of itself is now the emperor’s clothes and those who stand in support of Wall Street itself seem like an historic anachronism. Although in media and in person these tent camps have no glory, they are by their tattered nature, a perfect symbol of the inequity which we have allowed to dominate our democratic institutions and our society.

To stand with politicians who are now demanding the removal of the occupy movement is to stand with the Wall Street bankers. We must support this movement for change or face an even faster slide towards massive social inequity in the face of shrinking global resources and expanding populations. The elite will never remove themselves from the trough of plenty, the clear plan, as often before in history, must be simply a restoration of equity to the social fabric.

Photo Credits

Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830) – Public Domain Wikipedia

The Clear Plan to Change is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Forty years after the first public protest to address gay rights in Canada, an academic conference in Vancouver acknowledges, honours and celebrates this important milestone.

On August 28, 1971, I was four months old and knew not that 24 years later I would walk down the street in Vancouver, Canada holding the hand of a woman I cared deeply for and having bypassed the closet to do so.

 Also on this day, between 100 and 200 gay and lesbian people in Ottawa and 20 in Vancouver participated in the first large scale ‘gay rights’ demonstration in the history of Canada. Those in Ottawa gathered in the rain on parliament hill with passion, commitment and placards chanting “Two-four-six-eight! Gay is just as good as straight!”  One week earlier, they submitted a 13-page document to the Federal government calling for changes to the law and public policy as they pertained to gay and lesbian people. In Vancouver, there was a parallel demonstration on the steps of what is now the Vancouver Art Gallery, but then were the stairs leading to the Law Courts of British Columbia.

Parliament Hill, Aug 28, 1971

The demonstrations were timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the day Bill C-150 came into effect. The 1969 ominbus bill introduced by then Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau decriminalized private consensual homosexual activity between people over the age of 21.  The 10 demands included such suggestions to the criminal code as “the removal of the nebulous terms ‘gross indecency’ and ‘indecent act.’” It also suggested that the Immigration Act be amended so as to omit all references to homosexuals and ‘homosexualism.’ The document asked for the right of equal employment and promotion of all government levels for homosexuals. Other recommendations included changes to the Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Finally, it demanded “all legal rights for homosexuals which currently exist for heterosexuals.”

 This weekend, in Vancouver, the work of these men and women in 1971 is being revisited and honoured through a conference organized by three Canadian academics, Elise Chenier of Simon Fraser University, Patrizia Gentile of Carleton University and David Churchill of the University of Manitoba. “We Demand”: History/Sex/Activism In Canada is intended to explore links between sexuality and activism and to acknowledge scholarly investigation as one form of activism. The conference organizers encouraged participation from both academics and community activists.  I am attending the conference with my friend and collegue Lara Wilson, University Archivist at the University of Victoria. We are promoting our Transgender Archives.

We Demand, Vancouver 1971

I met and talked with one activist at the conference, Brian Waite, who was in Ottawa in 1971.

 CR: What was it like being one of 100 plus people in Ottawa?

 BW: The majority of men and women, the early leaders of the gay movement, were already left wing radicals. And, then when they came out what could be more natural than to start struggling for their own liberation.

 CR: When you were in Ottawa, what did you think would come of it?

 BW: We certainly knew that the 10 demands that we put forward were just and were right. We couldn’t see the future where they would be put into place, but we did see the struggle and believe that we would win, ultimately. We weren’t doing it just for spectacle. We did realize that we were the beginning of something bigger than us. We were starting a process. We took a lot of experience from the Feminist movement. Even though I’m a man, the women I was involved with at the time politically taught us. We used some of the organizational frameworks and strategies of the women’s movement and took them over into the gay movement, as did the lesbian activists.

 Knowing that the work of both the Feminist movement and the Queer movement is not done, I asked him what should come next. He told me that he had contributed much to the gay movement and felt somewhat retired. But, that if he was to become politically active again, his efforts would be re-directed towards general politics. His concern for the direction and leadership of our majority government leads him to believe that the cliché ‘the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer’ has never been more true. He believes that conferences like “We Demand” help to energize the fight, that academics will go back to their respective universities and spread the word to the next generations. But, he himself wants to fight on a broader political spectrum to challenge some of the growing inequities in the world because he is deeply concerned about what Canada may look like four years from now – for everybody.

 ****************

 Now, I am married to a wonderful man and I have two children. But, who I was when I was 24 shaped me and the people who came into my life then and since have helped to make me who I am. And, now, perhaps because I do have children, the importance of creating a better world is even stronger. Teaching my sons about difference, equality and justice is paramount.

 There is no doubt that the brave people who demonstrated in the streets of Ottawa and Vancouver in 1971 were making history, even if they did not know this at the time. This 40-year anniversary needs to be acknowledged. And yet, Brian’s concern over the state of Canadian politics and, indeed, Canadian lives stays with me.

 Yesterday, I began this post writing through tears as I both listened to and stopped to watch the former NDP leader and Leader, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’s celebration of life. Jack Layton  passed away on August 22, 2011. In his last days he wrote a letter to Canadians, the final words of which were “so let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

 At his celebration of life, Stephen Lewis quoted Indian novelist Arundhati Roy who said “Another world is not only possible she is on her way, on a quiet day I can hear her breathing.”

 Jack Layton’s dream for a more inclusive and generous Canada is perhaps what we all – straight, gay, bi, lesbian, transgendered & queer – need to be working towards.

Photo Credit

Parliament Hill, Aug 28, 1971,  Charles Hill speaking; picketers drenched but determined,  Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives, uncredited; possibly by Jearld Moldenhauer

 We Demand Vancouver, 1971, Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives

This Day in History: The First Gay Rights Demonstration in Canada is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Great moments in “laughtivism” from Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, the guys who duped the BBC, embarrassed Dow Chemical, and mocked Halliburton.

By The Yes Men

Some say that laughter helped bring down the Soviet Union, by making “­Brezhnev” rhyme with “ridiculous.” At the Yes Lab, we help activists cook up funny antics and escapades to change public opinion—with laughter. We’ve used humor as a weapon to avenge corporate wrongdoing for more than a decade, ever since we started dressing up as phony PR men, comic strip heroes, and government officials.

Click on the image to download the Yes Men Starter Disguise

That’s because we know humor is powerful: people have used jokes and hoaxes for centuries to humble the bad guys and inspire the good ones. Here are some of our favorite moments in “laughtivism.”

1. Abbie Hoffman incites a money grab.

In 1967, Abbie Hoffman and members of the Yippies, a radical activist group, threw 300 one-dollar bills from the New York Stock Exchange balcony onto the trading floor. According to Hoffman, as brokers grabbed for petty cash, trading ground to a halt. The famous stunt mocked the unregulated greed that still pervades Wall Street.

2. Let’s kill dissent—just kidding.

In 1702, in an era of religious persecution in England, Daniel Defoe published a fake pamphlet called “The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.” It proposed that—rather than barring non-Anglicans from office­—it would be faster and easier to exterminate them. Some people believed the pamphlet was real, which so humiliated Anglicans that they had Defoe briefly imprisoned—during which time he produced some wonderful writing.

3. Daring satire tweaks Nazis.

In November 1943, a fake issue of the Belgian newspaper Le Soir was published by the Front de l’Indépendance, a Belgian resistance organization. The paper looked like the real thing, but a close read revealed biting satire about the Nazi occupation. Some of the publishers were sent to concentration camps, but their brazen humor gave many Belgians the courage to resist the Nazis.

4. Phony bid stops drilling.

In 2008, Tim DeChristopher, then a student at the University of Utah, went to protest a federal auction selling rights to drill for oil and gas in the Utah wilderness. He then performed what is surely the best prank of the century. DeChristopher intended to barge in and disrupt the proceedings, but a door attendant confronted him: “Are you a bidder?” Tim thought: “That’s funny. Bidder?” “Why yes,” he said out loud. “Yes, I am.” The attendant gave him a paddle, and Tim won 14 parcels of land. Finally the auctioneer caught on, put the auction on hold, and had Tim arrested. Months later, the Obama administration cancelled the sales. DeChristopher singlehandedly saved thousands of acres of wilderness and now looks forward to writing some wonderful things in prison, where he may be headed after sentencing.

5. Imposters “help” Dow do the right thing.

Mike and Andy had already begun a habit of impersonating corporate hacks and hacking corporate websites, when in 2004, the BBC fell for a phony site (dowethics.com) the two had constructed to mimic Dow Chemical’s website. The site described why Dow and its subsidiary, Union Carbide, had never taken responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster, when a pesticide plant leaked, causing thousands of deaths and leaving behind a toxic legacy. The BBC booked Jude Finisterra (a.k.a. Andy Bichlbaum) to comment on the anniversary of Bhopal. Finisterra announced on international television that Dow would spend billions of dollars to clean up Bhopal. Major news wires picked up the story, and within 23 minutes, Dow’s stock price fell by 4.2 percent, a $2 billion loss. —YES! editors

(The humble Yes Men did not include one of their own stunts. But YES! Magazine editors (no relation), decided to anyway.)

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About the Authors: Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno wrote this article for Beyond Prisons, the Summer 2011 issue of YES! Magazine.

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YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

5 Protests That Shook the World (With Laughter) is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Here’s a great Wikileaks-supportive parody on the fact that major credit card and online payment companies have withheld over $15 million in donations to WikiLeaks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

WikiLeaks’ Spoofs MasterCard Commercial is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Julia McLean reflects on “The Big Society” speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron and says it’s time to reawaken of community — being a good neighbour will help end the recession.

10 Downing St.

David Cameron, Britain’s newest Prime Minister, has posited “The Big Society” as his policy. This is an extract from his speech in which he explains what he means:

It’s about liberation – the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street. And this is such a powerful idea for blindingly obvious reasons. For years, there was the basic assumption at the heart of government that the way to improve things in society was to micromanage from the centre, from Westminster. But this just doesn’t work. We’ve got the biggest budget deficit in the G20.…. The Big Society is about a huge culture change, where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace, don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.

Canadians already knew this, years ago. And so did Australians. “Stop whinging you Pommies” they would say to immigrant Brits. “Get on with it.”

Australia, like Canada and America, is a real DIY societies. They were those immigrants who believed that God helps those who help themselves. The protestant work ethic served them well, for no cavalry was going to ride to the rescue. “True Grit” was getting on with it in whatever circumstances.

British Prime Minister David Cameron

In Canada, when my husband was growing up, his dad built a garage for them to live in while he dug out the foundations of their future home. Then they moved into the basement while he built the house above them.

Even in the late 60s and early 70s, when I was living in Canada, I worked with young teachers in their 20s, who earned less than I did, but who managed to build themselves a swimming pool in their back garden. Many people had a second home that they built in the bush somewhere up north – where the dad would work over the years to provide great outdoors holidays for the kids.

Some people built canoes, some sail boats. These were not upper-income people, but ordinary folk who still behaved like pioneers to a certain extent. They managed because they all helped each other out.

Julia's father-in-law starting to build his house.

My father-in-law built his house just at the end of the Depression. The neighbours all helped out. One was an electrician, another a plumber, another a roofer. They swapped tools, know-how and craftsmanship. They built modest little houses, on huge lots, on the outskirts of Toronto in Willowdale, where their back gardens were the Wild wood and the Don Valley, and they could cycle up to Lake Simcoe.

The children played cowboys and Indians, and camped out and made their own bows and arrows and chaps out of cardboard. The women often knitted, crocheted or made clothes. Many a rag rug was made out of old clothes, and many beautiful quilts resulted from their work, especially on the Mennonite or Amish farms. They exchanged jam and cake recipes, salted their meat and cabbage, and learnt to make spaghetti and meatballs from their Italian neighbours.

My father-in-law also built his own television set in the early 40s, and all the neighbourhood kids would come around to watch. It had a round porthole screen like a dishwasher!

Britain, like most of Europe, has become very socialist, which means everyone depends on the government to solve their problems. Self-help is not the order of the day. My brother-in-law (a Brit) was once amused that I had bothered to make egg cups in a pottery class. I needed them, had paid for the course, and didn’t have much extra money so I made them just as I made my husband a suit when we were first married (with lots of help from Dressmakers’ Supply, that fabulous store in Toronto which has now disappeared!).

Our first house was a dilapidated 1850s house in Cabbagetown (but we always said we lived in Lower Rosedale). It took us 18 months to renovate it while we lived there with the cockroaches and the local drunks. In addition, we were fighting off the developers who wanted to raze most of Cabbagetown in favour of high-rise apartments. All of the residents of our street and many other streets joined together to stage a sit-in in Mayor Crombie’s office, at the same time as another crowd sat in front of the developer’s hoardings to prevent them going in with the bulldozers.

This was a Big Society at work in the 1970s.

We wanted to preserve the beautiful old Edwardian houses so that Toronto retained some character. Plus, it should not be forgotten that our particular street had a beer store at one end and a liquor store at the other, so there was no way we wanted those replaced by high rises and convenience stores!

When I was back in Canada, some five years ago, I was impressed by the number of volunteers who were cleaning up the sides of the highways which passed through their districts. They didn’t wait for the local councils to decide how to divide up the responsibility for this and then charge more on the local taxes. They just got on with it. I had always been impressed by how clean the Toronto subway was and that if you were inclined to drop a candy wrapping, someone would pick it up and likely tap you on the shoulder to say, “I’m sorry, I think you dropped this.”

I have tried this in London. A woman, when she had eaten her apple, put the core over her shoulder on the window sill of the subway. I followed her out with the core in my fingers and said, “I think you forgot this on the train.” I could have got a mouthful of abuse or a “punch up the throat”, but I think she was too astonished.

There are still too many towns in Britain where it is difficult to make friends. It used to be the habit that when you saw someone new moving into the neighbourhood, you would go around at four o’clock and offer them a cup of tea. We used to visit neighbours in hospital, keep an eye on their homes, sometimes house-sit, Gran-sit or dog-sit. In some areas of Britain, people are more reticent or don’t want to be nose,y so there are quite a few older people and young mothers who are alone for too much time. The churches and chapels have lost their grip, and too many wives are working so have little time for idle gossip. It’s up to Social Services to fill the gap.

The corkscrew – proof positive that the Big Society is alive and well!

However, I must tell David Cameron that the Big Society is alive and well in my bit of London. I have just been back to re-paint my old house. While visiting some friends outside London, I realised I had forgotten my work jeans and towels. Our friends were able to help out. When we arrived at the old house, the neighbours asked us in for a few jars of wine to catch up on old times and, before they lent us dishes and saucepans, invited us to eat with them that evening.

We borrowed sleeping bags, pillows and duvets too and happily camped out in our old home. Another neighbour lent us a step ladder and the builder down the road lent us extension ladder. One man jet-washed our patio and more importantly, lent us a corkscrew so that we could slake our thirst with wine at the end of a hard day’s painting!

An Afterthought on The Big Society

In France, the last Tuesday in May is designated as la Fete des Bons Voisins — Good Neighbours’ Day (can be held up to 4th June)when people are supposed to get together on their street or in their building for a drink or a meal.

The ‘fete’ was inaugurated in 2008 in Lille in order to promote social cohesiveness, and was apparently heavily promoted by the big supermarkets (according to this site which I found by Googling Fete des Bons Voisins).

An interesting article on the site (all in French) is very much against government-backed initiatives sponsored by Monoprix (a big supermarket chain), Heineken, Uncle Ben’s, Pizza Hut or any other capitalist institution, especially given that the aims of the ‘Fete’ are to encourage social peace, positive values, neighbourhood solidarity, and family unity; in other words” to keep the masses in their place with “Bread and Circuses’ as in Roman times.

Is this what Cameron meant by The Big Society?

Photo Credits

1. 10 Downing Street
2. David Cameron
3. My father in law starting to build his house
4. The corkscrew – proof positive that the Big Society is alive and well!

The Big Society (or How to Really Solve a Recession) is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Voter apathy is a big problem in North America, but social media is helping to spark renewed interest, and one party in Canada is even using chalk to inspire youth to vote. Who knew elections could be this creative?

Canada is right in the middle of an election (if you didn’t know) and unlike US Federal elections we kinda like to get it over with and done as fast as possible. In fact, we take about five weeks instead of two years; but we suffer from low voter turnout much like our cousins south of the border in the United States. It should be illegal not to vote I say, but that’s a different post. This post has a positive message in that there is a youth movement growing in this country to get the vote out amongst the 18 to 24 demographic who typically have the lowest turnout rates.

“According to Elections Canada, approximately 37% of youth (people aged 18-24) voted in the 2004 election, compared to the overall voter turnout of 60.9%. In the 2006 election, only 44% of youth voted, compared to 64.7% overall. Overall turnout is low because potential new voters aren’t opting into the voting system, not because experienced voters are opting out of it,” says Apathy is Boring.

In a press release yesterday about Apathy is Boring’s social media campaign to get the youth to the polls, we have some good news:

Over 190 000 Canadian youth have been invited by their friends to pledge to vote on May 2nd, 2011.

Through Apathy is Boring’s I WILL VOTE (http://on.fb.me/iwillvote2011) social media campaign over 190,000 youth have been invited by their friends to pledge, and 63, 000 of these youth have already pledged that they will vote on May 2nd 2011.

Research shows that if a young person pledges to vote and their friends know about it, they are much more likely to actually cast a ballot. According to a survey of young voters, the number one reason youth did not vote in the 2008 federal election was that they lacked the information they needed to participate.

Here’s an innovative video from the Green Party on getting out the youth vote. On the night before advanced voting, the Young Greens of Canada will draw 685 kilometers of chalk lines to remind Canada to vote. You can follow these green lines on April 22nd, 23rd and 25th to the advanced polls. It’s inspiring and nicely creative, and worth viewing no matter which party you decide to vote for. And remember: If you don’t vote you can’t complain.

Photo Credit

“Apathy is Boring booth in Montreal” © Apathy is Boring

Apathy Really is Boring: Using Social Media and Chalk to Inspire Youth to Vote is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

If you are at all concerned with where the United States is headed these days, or if you shake your head as to why partisan bickering is destroying a once-great nation, check out the speech US President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered some 50 years ago.

This speech was a warning, which went sadly unheeded. The result of ignoring this warning is the disaster the United States has become today. In fact, this speech that could be given today with as much relevance. President Obama could deliver this speech almost without editing and it would ring true.If you are too young to have heard much about Eisenhower, or if you never heard this speech, check it out below. It will give you goosebumps, and you’ll know how it feels to live with the consequences of not heading the warning.

Military Industrial Complex Speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Click here to view the embedded video.

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So — in this my last good night to you as your President — I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I — my fellow citizens — need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

The President’s Warning Speech: Eisenhower’s Words Still True is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN