2010 Year in Review

We rang in 2010 without a working Parliament, our prorogue-happy prime minister having shut it down in order to escape unwanted scrutiny over a few pesky allegations of complicity in torture. As you'll recall, Harper had also prorogued Parliament less than a year earlier, alarmed at the prospect of being ousted by a Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition government. Upset at what is shaping up to be a pattern of undemocratic and immature behaviour, Canadians took to the streets in droves to protest the second prorogation. We were among them here in Winnipeg, helping to organize a protest and march. On the one hand it was a success, with hundreds of attendees and even media mention of the “prorogie” noisemakers we painstakingly crafted for the occasion. On the other hand, we still have a frighteningly unaccountable right-wing government (and a government at all, for that matter), and one whose leadership appears to be climbing in the polls as 2010 draws to a close.

Police brutality continues to be a problem in Winnipeg, despite the force changing its official motto to “Building relationships.” If you click here, you can see a group of five of our city's finest building relationships with the back of 18-year-old Cody Bousquet's head as he's lying handcuffed on the ground in a PartSource parking lot. International Day Against Police Brutality in March was an opportunity to try to bring these issues into the eye of the wider public. Our local event, organized by Copwatch, New Socialist Group, FemRev, Anarchist Black Cross and others, featured a march, a movie, and, unfortunately, an awkward speech from Gordon Sinclair Jr., whose few-bad-apples police apologia incensed and dismayed the crowd. Rally coverage in the Winnipeg Free Press did not materialize, despite Gordo's promise.

And speaking of asshole cops, the summer of 2010 marked an unprecedented violation of charter rights as over 1,000 protestors, journalists and bystanders were swept up in the largest mass arrest in Canadian history at the G8/G20 summits in Toronto. This sparked not only fiery debate in leftist circles about protest tactics and the good/bad protestor divide, but also several solidarity and awareness-raising events, including a Canada Day demonstration in Osborne Village, a discussion panel at the Millenium Library, and many afternoons of bubble-blowing on the street, surveying curious passerby as to whether blowing bubbles in public should be a crime (we think not, but Officer Bubbles and the Toronto Police apparently feel otherwise). Our personal favourite was a rainy mid-July rally that happened to coincide with the Fringe Festival. Seeing the Old Market stage abandoned due to the downpour, our group commandeered it with the hope of educating festival-goers about our country's most recent attacks on its citizens' right to free speech and peaceful assembly. We soon found ourselves being chased away by festival organizers (not to mention a performer with a bullwhip), who reminded us that the Fringe stage is for fun and frivolity only. (For a lengthy discussion on 'diversity of tactics,' see post 1, post 2 and post 3)

If the summer was a rough one for anti-globalization protestors and people who happened to be going to work in downtown Toronto in June, it was perhaps even more so for anti-apartheid dissidents. Nine activists were killed by the Israeli army in international waters as they attempted to break the Gaza blockade with a shipment of food, toys and medical supplies. On the home front, Education Minister Nancy Allan completely lost her shit when she discovered that the 2010 Grade 12 provincial exam contained an antisemitic reference: a two-line description of a Gazan child wounded in the Israel/Palestine conflict, excerpted from an essay Chantal Kreviazuk once wrote about war being bad. Oh, the bigotry! Both Allan and Kreviazuk apologized for the offence, and we are told that steps are being taken to ensure it never happens again. In the meantime of course, the CPCCA continue to work tirelessly at redefining antisemitism so that it encompasses any criticism of the state of Israel. We hope to be more actively involved in that particular brand of antisemitism in the coming year as we attempt to bring Israeli Apatheid Week to the U of W for the first time. President Lloyd Axworthy has vowed that such a thing will never happen on his watch, so this could be fun. Stay tuned! (For more on Canada's relationship with Israel, see this video)

And while we're on the topic of Axworthy, his concern about racism and prejudice apparently doesn't extend to bigoted sitting parliamentarians, at least as long as their party has recently given money to the university. In October, the U of W announced it would be bestowing an honorary Doctorate of Laws upon Public Safety Minister Vic Toews at the fall convocation. Yes, the same Vic Toews who fought not only to prevent same-sex marriage in Canada, but also to prevent LGBT* Canadians from being added as a protected group under hate crime legislation. The same Vic Toews who called the recent Tamil refugees “terrorists” (and then went on to introduce a bill permitting the government to incarcerate undocumented refugees for up to a year), and the same Vic Toews behind the recent $155 million prison expansion – in order to effectively combat all that “unreported crime,” no doubt.

Obviously a protest was in order, so we organized one on the day of the convocation, lining up outside the Duckworth Centre to disseminate some info about the honoree that was likely left out of the graduation program. Better still, the class valedictorian Erin Larson, a person who is also concerned about human rights, used her valedictory address to blast Toews for his intolerance and the university for its hypocrisy. (If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a watch on youtube.) It was, hands down, the best graduation ceremony ever! (For more on Vic Toews, click here)

A civic election happened this year, and the local left predictably rallied around an only-slightly-lesser-of-two-evils candidate, who eventually lost after an over-hyped campaign. The new council, not satisfied with the current state to which poverty is already criminalized in Winnipeg, are planning to make boulevard panhandling illegal in 2011. It's good to know there will be no shortage of things to object to in the New Year. If City Hall does us a great big favour and releases it to the public, we might even be able to object to the 30-year contract they signed with Veiolia to privatize Winnipeg's waste water management system. (For more on the Veiolia contract, click here)

It's been an interesting year in many other respects as well. When we weren't angrily waving placards, we could often be found touring the Oxford Bible Church Creationist museum with our heathen pals in the Atheist Students Association; attending the wedding of a local messianic cult in order to gain insight both into their communal and sustainability practices and to their seemingly contradictory fanatical misogyny; sitting in on question period at Parliament Hill and experiencing the extreme depths of exasperation and loss of confidence in humanity; and, in Rob's case, dressing up as a giant box to protest the increased corporatization of the U of W campus. (For boxing coverage, click here)

We also got married this year, as some of you may already know. While initially trepidacious about making a lifelong commitment in exchange for the health and dental benefits promised to married couples, we cheered up when we learned that if you stop liking your partner, you can always get divorced (and it's only $250!). The wedding also afforded Rob the perfect chance to deck himself out in white lace, and Jac the opportunity to wear her Rob Halford costume one more time. Thanks again to our officiant, Jennifer, and our wedding party, Kelsey and Amanda, for continuing the time-honoured wedding tradition of putting on silly costumes picked out by the bride and groom. Thanks also to our photographer, Steve, for helping us to capture and immortalize memories that will last a lifetime. (For the full wedding ceremony transcript, click here)

That about brings you up to speed on what’s been going on with us. Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season, and a revolutionary 2011!

Have a Holly Jolly Anti-Capitalist Christmas

If you're anything like me, you spend the holiday season doing your best to avoid participating in the annual orgy of consumerism known as Christmas. The simple strategy to achieve this is to avoid buying presents for anyone at all. However, issues tend to arise when you apply this principle to close family members who have truly bought into the 'presents=love' mentality. Here are three things you can do with your family this year to avoid feeding the insatiable greed beast that is capitalism:

1. Have an anti-capitalist gift exchange. Everyone in the family either makes a gift to give or gives away something they already own. You can distribute the presents any way you want (ex. secret Santa). This ritual will hopefully inspire your family with creativity and give them a lot more joy and bring you closer together than exchanging store bought presents ever could.

2. Another cheap or free way to have your family give each other something meaningful is to put together a family mix CD. I know that mix CDs are a little out of date in 2010, but your parents still haven't figured out how cassette tapes work, so they won't mind. Divide the 80 minutes that make up a CD-R into as many parts as you have family members. For example, if you have five family members, that's 16 minutes each. Then have each person pick enough songs to fill up their allotment and write a short description for each song and an explanation of why it is meaningful to them. Collect all the song choices and burn them onto a CD, collect all the write ups and make a booklet, and then make enough copies for every family member.

3. Deliver Christmas hampers for the Christmas Cheer Board (or equivalent organization). Driving around with your family delivering hampers is the perfect opportunity to listen to that mix CD you all made together!

I will being doing all three of the above activities this Xmas and Jacquie gets full credit for coming up with the first two.

What rituals do you engage in during the yuletide with your family and friends?

Vasecotmy Saga: The Quest...Ends?

In my last vasectomy-related post, I talked about why I wanted to get a vasectomy and my experience of trying to obtain one from one Dr. Jason. He turned out to be a bust, but I was not demoralized and moved on to the next vasectomy doctor on my list: Dr. Billinkoff.

Billinkoff is the king of vasectomies in Winnipeg. His website is relatively modern and professional looking and it even includes a very informative and unintentionally hilarious pre-appointment video (the password is "patient"). I thought that he would be so slick and focused on getting patients in and out of his clinic as fast as possible that he would look past my young age and lack of children and give me the vasectomy of my dreams.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. Billinkoff managed to be even more patronizing and dismissive than Dr. Jason was. He didn't care that I had done a ton of research or that I had made the decision not to have children many years ago. He told me to come back when I was 28. He also said that he only performs vasectomies on men of my age who had demonstrated a severe lack of responsibility by fathering several children by several different women. And therefore, because I had demonstrated that I am a mature and responsible cock owner, I am ineligible to make the responsible and mature decision to get a vasectomy (I'm paraphrasing slightly). Pointing out the illogical nature of Billinkoff's arguments did nothing to sway him. I left his office that September afternoon feeling very frustrated indeed.


After Billinkoff, there was only one vasectomy doctor left in the entire city: Dr. Milner at the Assiniboine Clinic. I was completely stunned when as soon as Milner started talking he seemed to be speaking to me as if I was an adult. He understood that I had done the research necessary and that I had been rejected by two other doctors but had remained steadfast. What may have been the deciding factor, though, was that Milner will soon be retiring so there's almost no chance that he'll be the one to perform the reversal surgery if I have a post-op change of heart. Now, all I have to do is wait until March when the actual surgery takes place.

Although I'm elated that my quest was a success and I'm happy to share the good news with you that if you'd like to get a vasectomy and are youngish you can go to Milner, I'm on some level disappointed that I won't be able to use the restriction on male reproductive rights to start a public awareness campaign or a claim of human rights violation. Oh well, it's not like human rights violations are hard to come by.

I Would Rather Father a Revolution

The following is an alternate version of the article that is in the November 24th edition of The Manitoban. It's a tad too heavy handed and dry, but it's somewhat helpful in further expanding on my arguments for why activism and parenting are at odds.

Being a parent is a very demanding job. It involves huge sacrifices and requires a willingness to give up most of your own life for the sake of another person. Parents have to constantly fret about what impact their decisions will have on the well-being of their children. For a parent with politically radical ideas and whose life is based around radical activism, the task is made even more difficult. Because of the inherent contradictions between my values as an activist and the values of good parenting, I have decided to be childfree.

The most important thing to keep in mind while thinking about parenthood is that having a child is a choice. Thanks to the pill and other birth-control technologies, no one has to bear children if they choose not to. Simply because the dominant culture emphasizes parenthood and because it is a “biological imperative” to have children, doesn't mean that not having children is somehow wrong or immoral. Having children and not having children are equally valid lifestyle choices.

I think that a good parent is someone who puts the needs of their child before the needs of all others, including their own. On the other hand, I think that being a good activist means that you privilege the greater good above the needs of any individual or group of individuals. Logically speaking, it would then be impossible to be both the best parent possible and the best activist possible at the same time. At best, concessions could be made towards one identity or the other, depending on the circumstances. In the end, you would either be compromising your parenting or your activism. Since my aim is to be the best activist I can possibly be, I have to choose not to be a parent.

A related tension that would potentially arise when trying to be both a radical activist and a parent would be between being completely devoted to living your ideals and being completely devoted to being a good parent. I find it difficult to imagine that I could achieve both. An example of a situation where this tension would arise would be selecting a school for my hypothetical child. It would be the right choice to enrol my kid at the nearest inner-city school. This way, racial segregation between visible minorities and whites would be lessened and my child would have a full understanding of the implications of inner-city ghettos for the poor. However, because they would be white and relatively privileged, they would probably experience hostility from their fellow students. They would also receive a poorer education than they would at different school in a more affluent area. Because I would love my child and would not want to sacrifice their well-being for a principle, I would probably put them in the school that best serves their interests. I would put the needs of my child before the needs of the racially and economically marginalized. As I have already stated, this should be antithetical to the values of any good activist.

Learning about the horrors of the world (colonialism, genocide, poverty, etc.) is a thoroughly traumatic experience. Because I was raised in a white middle-class household, I was guarded from the naked truths of the world until I was an adult. By that time, I had built up enough emotional maturity to deal with reality and turn my anger and despair into something constructive (IE The Plan). If I were to have a child, it would inevitably be exposed to the worst of human nature, just by overhearing conversations of adults around it who are concerned with making the world a better place. I think it is likely that if the curtain was pulled back a few years earlier, that I might be institutionalized today. It would be hard to justify choosing to bring an innocent child into that environment knowing the near inevitable result. This is not to mention the other problems, such as being made a pariah by their peers for having strange thoughts about systemic oppression or veganism. Is it even possible to raise a child in a radical environment that doesn't grow up to be both self-loathing and hateful of everyone else for assisting in the daily atrocities committed by human beings against each other and the planet? I'm not sure it is.

So what would being childfree and trying to help all children look like? Besides endeavouring to end capitalism and replace it with a more humanitarian economic system, there are many practical things you can do. For example, I volunteer at the Winnipeg Remand Centre with a program called 'Get The Story Out'. It involves bringing children's books to the inmates and having them read out loud into a voice recorder. I then send the book and a CD with the inmate's voice on it to their child. My hope is that by doing this, I'm in some small way fostering the connection between those children and their fathers and that that in turn may end the cycle of incarceration for that family. Some other options for volunteer work include helping out with an after school homework program like the one at the Spence Neighbourhood Association, or supervising in an inner-city school lunch room.

All this having been said, I know some great parents who are also great activists, and my intention is not to disparage the choices that they have made. I also don't mean to omit the many other great reasons for not having children such as saving money, having free time, protecting the environment, simply not wanting any, etc. Living life childfree and living with children are profoundly different lifestyles and I encourage everyone to consider their options carefully.

Up with students! Down with corporatization!

It's been about a month and a half since I pulled my little "boxing against corporatization" stunt at the U of W, so I figured that I'd make a blog post compiling the coverage and response it received as well as my retrospective thoughts on the matter.

First, here is the news piece about the action:
http://uniter.ca/view/4643/
Here is my letter to the editor that appeared in the same issue of the Uniter as the story above:
http://uniter.ca/view/4652/
And here are the letters that comprised a short back and forth between myself and one of my detractors:
http://uniter.ca/view/4703/
http://uniter.ca/view/4784/
http://uniter.ca/view/4920/

Get it? "Think outside the box"? GENIUS! Even though it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in that context, I fully understand why he used it. That shit is just too damn clever not to use.

As far as the action itself went, I'm very happy with it. It was a lot of work, but it paid off with the Uniter coverage, the awareness I raised while collecting signatures, and the attention I got from the UWSA. I haven't changed the minds of those in power of the U of W student government yet, but at least I started a conversation that should be happening in every university across the globe. They now know that some people care enough about the issue to wear a box and look like an idiot.

The way I framed the issue was purposefully moderate in an attempt to appeal to the average student. The question I asked when I was collecting signatures for my petition was, "Who do you think the UWSA should prioritize: students or corporations?" The question I really wanted to ask would have been, "Why should corporations be allowed to advertise at all, anywhere, ever?"

But back to the question I actually did ask. It's a simplistic representation of reality, but I don't think it's an unfair question. By giving RBC, MTS, BMO, Rogers, etc. prime real estate to sell their wares for profit at the expense of the student groups who are merely attempting to create community out of the goodness of their hearts, is careless at best and at worst belies a deeply flawed perspective of what the post-secondary experience should be about. I'm afraid the truth may be closer to the latter.

During my conversations with various UWSA folks, one talking point that kept getting repeated was that we need sponsors in order to pay for a big party that students are demanding. Really? If there was no O-Week next year do they think that there would be a riot? Would most students even notice? I'm not saying don't have a party at all, but I am saying that it could be radically scaled back in terms of cost without sacrificing its capacity to improve school spirit and let the kids have a little fun. In fact, I think an O-Week that focused on local up-and-coming music acts, rather than the biggest name out-of-towner that they could afford would have created a better sense of community, given some great unheard bands some visibility, and supported the Winnipeg arts scene in general.

I think if O-Week involved teams from different faculties getting together to compete against each other in various games and sports, it would go a long way to reducing the apathy that I saw on campus when I attended the U of W. Not to mention how incredibly cheap it would be. Pit the Physics department against the Classics department in a game of soccer. Make the Kinesiology kids play a quiz game-show type game against the Drama kids. Have Anthropology square off against Politics in a no-holds-barred water balloon relay. Offer prizes, make the teams dress in the same colour, and maybe even give out hot dogs (as long as some are tofu).

I'm not complete curmudgeon. I don't hate fun. What I do hate is the completely unnecessary turn towards corporatization that the UWSA took during this year's O-Week. I care because I spent four years of my life at the U of W and my time there made me the person I am today. To see it cluttered with corporate booths trying to entice gullible students into taking on more debt load than they already have was heartbreaking. The UWSA needs to start thinking outside the box. OH SNAP!