Class War Over A Nanaimo Park!

Colliery Dam Park is the best park in Harewood, a working class neighborhood of Nanaimo BC. The park has two small lakes, the result of a coal company dam a hundred years ago. People too poor to afford the swimming pool, or those who prefer non-chlorinated water swim there in the summer. Others go there to fish or just laze by the water. It is also a place of exquisite beauty.



For reasons we can only guess, the City bureaucrats and the Council majority wish to destroy this park by tearing out the dams. Many people fear that sleazy developers are behind the scheme, wishing to plant their crummy condos on the flood plain. (The stated reason is "safety" – there is a fear of earthquakes destroying the old dams) A mass movement, with probably 90% support has arisen to challenge this action.



This Save the Colliery Dams coalition, with almost 2300 members, has been very flexible dealing with the City, accepting their claim that the dams might need repair or replacement. The difference between the people and the City is how this is done. The people want the dams to be removed, replaced or repaired in a staged, organized fashion. They want something solid on paper. The City on the other hand just wants to tear the dams down this summer and makes vague promises of rebuilding next year. Given the history of governments and promises, you cannot blame the people for finding this unacceptable.

Furthermore, the bureaucracy and Council majority actions have done nothing to alleviate this suspicion – meetings behind closed doors, motions rammed through without debate and a whole catalogue of political trickery. These include stone-walling, denial, ridicule, strawman arguments and spin. These tactics are dishonest and treat the people as the enemy. (It should be added that while the city trots out its experts, the Coalition also has its engineers, geologists etc, but the counter-information is dismissed out of hand by the City.)

This is an obvious failure of the governmental system. Rather than democracy, we have an elected dictatorship. Once elected, many (most?)  officials think they can do whatever they want and the people be damned. (Pardon the pun.) Furthermore, we have a permanent, unelected government in the shape of the bureaucracy. They should be working for us, not the other way around.

If the situation wasn't ugly enough, count on our City council majority to make matters worse. Let's put out that camp fire with a bucket of gasoline! They are seeking a preemptive injunction against us in case we engage in civil disobedience to stop the destruction. I have never, in my long career as an activist, pamphleteer and organizer, heard of such a thing. Generally, the injunction is granted AFTER you do something. A preemptive injunction smacks of 1984. When you think about it, such an action negates your basic democratic rights.

It is really amazing what is happening here. I could spend 50 years handing out pamphlets on how the system is authoritarian and how we need real democracy – people's power – and never do as much to educate people of the nature of the system as one bullying action on the part of the City. I ought to thank the Council majority and the bureaucracy for making this old radicals task so easy!

I have never seen so much anger in my life as the residents of this neighborhood are expressing. This is going to be a long hot summer!

Austerity Policies as Mass Murder

More information on how austerity kills See

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/05/death-by-zip-code/

Mass Unemployment = Mass Murder

 An up-date - Here is an excellent article on how austerity is negatively effecting human genetics see

http://www.marxist.com/austeritys-toxic-genetic-legacy.htm

The following is an excellent article by Francis Moore Lappe on the connection between violence, unemployment and inequality,  Here is one great quote - A rise of 1 percent in joblessness in the United States is accompanied by an increase of roughly 1 percent in the suicide rate.

http://sgnews.ca/2013/04/25/high-anxiety-levels-lead-to-high-violence-rates/


The only point I would add is when are we going to have Nuremberg-type trials for the corporate and political criminals who are guilty of these crimes?

Anarcha-Feminism in Latin America

 Two great videos made in Chile and subtitled in English

In Bolivia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_FTZvMScLo

In Mexico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYrAe1VEIdM

Rise-Up for May Day Weekend at the Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, the Village Muse Bookstore in Cumberland (centrally located on Vancouver Island in British Columbia) will be hosting the first ever Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair at The Abbey, featuring a May Day feast of subversive ideas and creative resistance possibilities. As a black and green event, it is bathed in both the radical legacy of the Cumberland mine wars and the soaring Beltane spirit of the Merry Month of May, and has absolutely nothing to do with Queen Victoria's birthday. This anarchist festival of the book has been fomented in the cooperative spirit of mutual aid that unites Cumberland and Denman Island co-conspirators. While we anticipate that lots of anarchists and anarchist-friendly folks will converge on Cumberland that weekend, you don't have to be a self-described anarchist to attend the Book Fair. All you need is an open mind and an anti-authoritarian sense of curiosity.

In The Abbey on this day, you will find rows of tables peopled by individuals, distros, and bookstores that feature a wide array of anarchist and anarchist-related books, zines, publications, and crafts. Participating bookstores and distros, in alphabetical order, so far include: BC Blackout (Vancouver/Denman Island), Black Banner Distro (Vancouver), Black Sheep Collective (Calgary), Camas Books (Victoria), One Way Ticket (Victoria), Red Lion Press (Nanaimo), Spartacus Books (Vancouver), Village Muse Bookstore ( Cumberland), and Warrior Publications (Vancouver). At this point, individual book authors who will be at tables include: Gord Hill, Grant Schilling, Jeff Shantz, Larry Gambone, Matta, Matt Rader, Miles Olson, Ron Sakolsky, Sean Woods, and Tom Swanky. Only a limited number of tables are still available, so please apply asap.There will be free food all day and a potluck at the Abbey between 6 and 7 PM. The Abbey will provide space for an “art wall”and an acoustic open-mic event starting at 7:30 PM, dubbed The Creative Mayhem Anarchist Cabaret.

Across the street from the Abbey, at the OAP Hall, there will be a series of free direct action, skill-sharing and radical history workshops at the top of every hour all day. They will feature such topics as: combating the Raven and Bear coal mines/anti-pipeline solidarity; street theatre; rewilding; Cortes Island forest defense; the BC government's historical use of biological warfare against indigenous people through the spread of smallpox on Vancouver Island and in the Comox Valley; grand jury resistance in the Pacific Northwest,decolonization; and Cumberland's radical roots. Outdoors, there will be a medicinal plant walk and a blacksmithing workshop. As we get closer to the Book Fair date, we will provide more detailed info on titles, facilitators and scheduling, as well as billeting possibilities for out-of-towners.

On the occasion of this 2013 May Day event, we recognize the 127th anniversary of the judicial murder of the Haymarket anarchists in their fight against wage slavery back in 1886, and we remember Ginger Goodwin, who was shot in the back by the law at Comox Lake for militant union organizing activities among his fellow Cumberland mine workers and for his principled refusal of conscription during the First World War.

In turn, we commemorate the hundredth anniversary of local resistance to the military invasion and occupation of Cumberland by order of BC Attorney General Bowser in 1913. His kilted dragoons were stationed in the village at the behest of the coal barons to protect their financial empire by breaking the Vancouver Island miners' strike of 1912-1914 and restoring order through the imposition of martial law.

Today, anarchists, along with many others, are engaged in an effort to prevent Cumberland from once again becoming a mining town under the thumb of the coal bosses should the Compliance Energy Corporation's proposal for a Raven coal mine project get approved, which would then open the door for the proposed open-pit Bear coal mine to be precariously perched over Comox Lake, threatening the village's water supply.

Finally, we respectfully acknowledge that we are holding this event on K'ómoks' territory, and we express our solidarity with their ongoing struggle for their land and against colonization.

Contacts: Cathy Stoyko (250-218-0704)
cdstoyko@uniserve.com

Ron Sakolsky (250-335-0843)



oystercatcher@uniserve.com

Nadja Found!

That North America is a cultural backwater Surrealism-wise was plainly evident when I found this three year old story. Nadja, the wild Surrealist woman of Andre Breton's novel of the same name has been a mystery since the book was published in 1928. Who was she? Did Nadja even exist? By accident I found this web site which resolves the mystery. 
http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/on-my-shelf-andre-bretons-nadja/35618/
               Nadja's real name was Leona Delcourt (1902-1941) Below is her self portrait taken from Breton's book and below that is her photograph.

The sort of small-minded bitter people who delight in tearing down others, have accused Breton of callous behaviour for refusing to see Nadja in the insane asylum. Letters from her have also come to light showing her obsession with Breton, to the point that he felt threatened by her. (Breton was happily married at this time.) Visiting her would only maintain or inflame this passion.