British Columbia Under Siege
Eric Blare | 21.01.2002 05:17
The Agenda is in full swing in B.C. Environmental protections are gone, social services gutted, public utilities on the block.
BRITISH COLUMBIA UNDER NEOLIBERAL RULE
by alex 7:46am Sat Jan 19 '02
After creating a huge deficit through tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, Premier Campbell and his merry band of neoliberals are going to balance BC’s budget on the health and well-being of the poorest mothers, children, poor people in general and public service workers.
"Bet you didn't know there were 56,218 millionaires living in British Columbia in 1999. Or that their average net worth was a cool $2.7 million. Or that together they accounted for well over one-third of all the personal wealth in the province." -- Steve Kerstetter
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/bc/btn-bcmillionaires.html
The neoliberals who run the world’s corporations desperately need to escalate the economic war that the world’s rich elite have been waging against average people and the poor for many centuries.
And after only one century of rapid, wide-scale industrialization, the rich know that world’s economy is in very deep trouble, because industrial machines are producing far more stuff (i.e. cigarettes, coffee, booze, soda pop, junk food, prescription drugs, knick-knacks etc.) than people can rationally consume.
But neoliberals in the business sector have only one solution to every social problem -- more consumption leading to more production, and then, of course, to more money for the rich. And yet, consumption beyond rational, healthy limits only leads to chronic ill health for us and the planet as a whole.
Moreover, machines need ‘cheap’ oil, (and thus an ongoing war in the Middle East) electricity and raw resources (and an ongoing war of global corporate imperialism) to make money for the rich. Indeed, neoliberals need total ‘private’ control over ‘everything’ to ensure that the world’s average people won’t ever have voice in the world’s economic practices.
The corporations don’t want "we the people" using the principles of democracy to safeguard public health and the environmental health of the planet, and, therefore, interfering with corporate profit margins. And so they’ve hired lackeys like Gordon Campbell to drive the nails into average people’s coffins and the planet’s coffin.
And after creating a huge deficit through tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, Premier Campbell and his merry band of neoliberals are going to balance BC’s budget on the health and well-being of the poorest mothers, children, poor people in general and public service workers.
BC’s millionaires get obscene tax cuts while single mothers on welfare and their children become the targets to pay for the Liberals’ tax cuts. Single parents will have to find a job when their youngest turns 3 (changed from age 7). That is, if they can find daycare, which the liberals already cut, and can afford to pay the extra costs over and above the daycare subsidy. They can also expect to compete with $6/hour "first job" employees for low-wage service jobs. If they do not find a job within two years they will have their benefits cut by 11%. Women’s centres (33 in the province) and the myriad of support and services they offer will be eliminated by 2004 as will bridging employability programs.
Seniors are also a target: the government will phase out the seniors supplement for low-income seniors-- $49.30 per month for singles and $60.25 for couples. They will also scrap the bus pass subsidy for low-income seniors who receive OAS/GIS which means instead of paying $45 per year they will have to pay $32 per month (in Victoria). Older welfare recipients (age 55-64) who used to receive an extra $60 per month will have that cut and will now get the basic welfare rate of $510 per month.
Meanwhile, BC Premier Gordon Campbell owns a $550,000 vacation house that he paid for with $375,000 cash. Clearly, Campbell’s idea of individual responsibility is to fatten his own bank account with as much money as he can get his hands on while governing ruthlessly so that the poorest people have as little as possible to feed and shelter themselves.
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1693 group=webcast
And no matter how much property or how many millions of dollars neoliberals like Campbell accumulate, it’s never enough. The wealthy ruling elite truly believes that average people and the world’s natural resources exist solely for the purpose of making rich people richer.
In BC, and all over the world, rich people have staggering amounts of money in comparison to the rest of us. Forbes ‘business’ magazine states that "538 billionaires from 46 countries this year, [have] an average net worth of $3.2 billion for a total of $1,721.6 trillion while the World Bank’s own statistics show that "poverty remains a global problem of huge proportions. Of the world's 6 billion people, 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day and 1.2 billion on less than $1 a day.
http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/
http://www.forbes.com/people/2001/06/21/billionairesindex.html
People all over the world need homes, good food and public health services but people like Gordon Campbell want us to smoke more cigarettes, eat more junk food, go to gambling casinos and mindlessly consume what ever products the corporations churn out.
---------------------------------------
The gravest problem with corporate market fundamentalism is that it is decoupled from society’s life conditions. It is, in fact, incapable of recognizing any value to anything except corporate "value adding" which, it is assumed, should regulate all peoples and conditions of life on earth for "efficiency" and "maximum growth". -- John McMurtry
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1871&group=webcast
---------------------------------------
The health-destroying global tragedy of massive ‘forced’ over-production and over-consumption:
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1855&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1522&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1914&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2008&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1947&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2136&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1967&group=webcast
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1936&group=webcast
--------------------------------------------------------
WHY A WAR ON THE POOR?
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Welfare is a form of income maintenance, and as such it served as a buffer between the employed and the unemployed. Therefore, workers were not desperate for any job that they could find. When workers are not desperate, when they have security, they demand higher wages form capitol. Who would've thought that the poorest among us, those on welfare, strengthened and stabilized the wages of workers?
It's for this reason that capital launched it's attack on income maintenance programs through its political agents (republicans and Democrats), using the slight-of-hand label of "welfare reform." Both parties of big business joined hands in the battle against the poorest, egged on by big business media conglomerates, who are but subsidiaries of even bigger businesses. This interests of capital can be summed up in one word: capital.
Why do you think every time news comes out about low unemployment Wall Street panics and stocks tumble?
When masses of people are unemployed that's called "good for business!" How can bad for people be good for business?
[in 1998]…French unemployed took to the streets nationally, rocking the Neoliberal establishment with a wave of militant demonstrations. This remarkable mobilization showed the power of a movement of unemployed, that beat back the state's attempts to cut back on French income maintenance programs. That movement leaped across the border to Germany, where marches sprung up in over 200 cities.
We can learn from the French who did not hesitate to organize and mobilize the poor and unemployed.
The slogan of the French may not translate well to us here, but it bears repeating: "Who sows misery reaps rage."
The politicians ain't the solution - the people are.
Let us organize.
(c)MAJ
http://pan.afrikan.net/mumiaboard/messages/21.shtml
--------------------------------------------------------------------
We Don’t Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives!
In December and January tens of thousands of jobless people demonstrated in dozens of French cities, in many cases occupying unemployment offices, welfare offices, utility companies and repossession agencies, invading posh stores and restaurants, and making collective raids on supermarkets. This movement, though far bolder than jobless actions in the United States, unfortunately remained largely under the control of the official unemployment associations (dominated by the leftist parties and labor unions). Many of the occupations, however, were carried out on the initiative of individuals who began bypassing the official spokespeople and speaking and acting for themselves.
http://www.slip.net/~knabb/recent/jobless.htm
by alex 7:46am Sat Jan 19 '02
After creating a huge deficit through tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, Premier Campbell and his merry band of neoliberals are going to balance BC’s budget on the health and well-being of the poorest mothers, children, poor people in general and public service workers.
"Bet you didn't know there were 56,218 millionaires living in British Columbia in 1999. Or that their average net worth was a cool $2.7 million. Or that together they accounted for well over one-third of all the personal wealth in the province." -- Steve Kerstetter
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/bc/btn-bcmillionaires.html The neoliberals who run the world’s corporations desperately need to escalate the economic war that the world’s rich elite have been waging against average people and the poor for many centuries.
And after only one century of rapid, wide-scale industrialization, the rich know that world’s economy is in very deep trouble, because industrial machines are producing far more stuff (i.e. cigarettes, coffee, booze, soda pop, junk food, prescription drugs, knick-knacks etc.) than people can rationally consume.
But neoliberals in the business sector have only one solution to every social problem -- more consumption leading to more production, and then, of course, to more money for the rich. And yet, consumption beyond rational, healthy limits only leads to chronic ill health for us and the planet as a whole.
Moreover, machines need ‘cheap’ oil, (and thus an ongoing war in the Middle East) electricity and raw resources (and an ongoing war of global corporate imperialism) to make money for the rich. Indeed, neoliberals need total ‘private’ control over ‘everything’ to ensure that the world’s average people won’t ever have voice in the world’s economic practices.
The corporations don’t want "we the people" using the principles of democracy to safeguard public health and the environmental health of the planet, and, therefore, interfering with corporate profit margins. And so they’ve hired lackeys like Gordon Campbell to drive the nails into average people’s coffins and the planet’s coffin.
And after creating a huge deficit through tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, Premier Campbell and his merry band of neoliberals are going to balance BC’s budget on the health and well-being of the poorest mothers, children, poor people in general and public service workers.
BC’s millionaires get obscene tax cuts while single mothers on welfare and their children become the targets to pay for the Liberals’ tax cuts. Single parents will have to find a job when their youngest turns 3 (changed from age 7). That is, if they can find daycare, which the liberals already cut, and can afford to pay the extra costs over and above the daycare subsidy. They can also expect to compete with $6/hour "first job" employees for low-wage service jobs. If they do not find a job within two years they will have their benefits cut by 11%. Women’s centres (33 in the province) and the myriad of support and services they offer will be eliminated by 2004 as will bridging employability programs.
Seniors are also a target: the government will phase out the seniors supplement for low-income seniors-- $49.30 per month for singles and $60.25 for couples. They will also scrap the bus pass subsidy for low-income seniors who receive OAS/GIS which means instead of paying $45 per year they will have to pay $32 per month (in Victoria). Older welfare recipients (age 55-64) who used to receive an extra $60 per month will have that cut and will now get the basic welfare rate of $510 per month.
Meanwhile, BC Premier Gordon Campbell owns a $550,000 vacation house that he paid for with $375,000 cash. Clearly, Campbell’s idea of individual responsibility is to fatten his own bank account with as much money as he can get his hands on while governing ruthlessly so that the poorest people have as little as possible to feed and shelter themselves.
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1693 group=webcast And no matter how much property or how many millions of dollars neoliberals like Campbell accumulate, it’s never enough. The wealthy ruling elite truly believes that average people and the world’s natural resources exist solely for the purpose of making rich people richer.
In BC, and all over the world, rich people have staggering amounts of money in comparison to the rest of us. Forbes ‘business’ magazine states that "538 billionaires from 46 countries this year, [have] an average net worth of $3.2 billion for a total of $1,721.6 trillion while the World Bank’s own statistics show that "poverty remains a global problem of huge proportions. Of the world's 6 billion people, 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day and 1.2 billion on less than $1 a day.
http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/ http://www.forbes.com/people/2001/06/21/billionairesindex.html People all over the world need homes, good food and public health services but people like Gordon Campbell want us to smoke more cigarettes, eat more junk food, go to gambling casinos and mindlessly consume what ever products the corporations churn out.
---------------------------------------
The gravest problem with corporate market fundamentalism is that it is decoupled from society’s life conditions. It is, in fact, incapable of recognizing any value to anything except corporate "value adding" which, it is assumed, should regulate all peoples and conditions of life on earth for "efficiency" and "maximum growth". -- John McMurtry
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1871&group=webcast ---------------------------------------
The health-destroying global tragedy of massive ‘forced’ over-production and over-consumption:
http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1855&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1522&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1914&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2008&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1947&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2136&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1967&group=webcast http://victoria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1936&group=webcast --------------------------------------------------------
WHY A WAR ON THE POOR?
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Welfare is a form of income maintenance, and as such it served as a buffer between the employed and the unemployed. Therefore, workers were not desperate for any job that they could find. When workers are not desperate, when they have security, they demand higher wages form capitol. Who would've thought that the poorest among us, those on welfare, strengthened and stabilized the wages of workers?
It's for this reason that capital launched it's attack on income maintenance programs through its political agents (republicans and Democrats), using the slight-of-hand label of "welfare reform." Both parties of big business joined hands in the battle against the poorest, egged on by big business media conglomerates, who are but subsidiaries of even bigger businesses. This interests of capital can be summed up in one word: capital.
Why do you think every time news comes out about low unemployment Wall Street panics and stocks tumble?
When masses of people are unemployed that's called "good for business!" How can bad for people be good for business?
[in 1998]…French unemployed took to the streets nationally, rocking the Neoliberal establishment with a wave of militant demonstrations. This remarkable mobilization showed the power of a movement of unemployed, that beat back the state's attempts to cut back on French income maintenance programs. That movement leaped across the border to Germany, where marches sprung up in over 200 cities.
We can learn from the French who did not hesitate to organize and mobilize the poor and unemployed.
The slogan of the French may not translate well to us here, but it bears repeating: "Who sows misery reaps rage."
The politicians ain't the solution - the people are.
Let us organize.
(c)MAJ
http://pan.afrikan.net/mumiaboard/messages/21.shtml --------------------------------------------------------------------
We Don’t Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives!
In December and January tens of thousands of jobless people demonstrated in dozens of French cities, in many cases occupying unemployment offices, welfare offices, utility companies and repossession agencies, invading posh stores and restaurants, and making collective raids on supermarkets. This movement, though far bolder than jobless actions in the United States, unfortunately remained largely under the control of the official unemployment associations (dominated by the leftist parties and labor unions). Many of the occupations, however, were carried out on the initiative of individuals who began bypassing the official spokespeople and speaking and acting for themselves.
http://www.slip.net/~knabb/recent/jobless.htm
Eric Blare