Tomorrow's History Essay

I was recently thinking back to my school days. The process of writing an essay about the Industrial Revolution in my first university English course, to be specific. And the fact that you can't talk about the Industrial revolution without talking about the social conditions and existing technology leading up to the Revolution. Likewise, you can't write about Darwin's theory of evolution without covering the impact that preceding geological discoveries had on shifting scientific, religious and cultural attitudes.

It didn't take long for me to start thinking about where Occupy would fit in an essay about the next great social-cultural-political revolution. Will it be the discovery of dinosaur bones or the theory of evolution? Will it be a step en route -- something that paves the way for greater social consciousness of the forces at work in our daily lives? Or will it be the beginning of the change that many, even those who do not support Occupy, agree we desperately need?

The change people want is not easy to describe. It cannot be proffered in a soundbite or elevator pitch. It is multi-faceted in its response to economic, environmental and social stresses. It surpasses our comforts and pleasures and demands sacrifice and the discomfort of examining our individual roles in the world; a world that is now home to over seven billion people.

Seven billion. How many people are there going to be 50 years down the road? One-hundred? Are we going to do anything to pave the way for future people to be able to exist on this planet, never mind enjoy their time on it?

But that is a future essay. Today, we are contributing to history, and there have already been steps leading to this moment. First there was the Arab Spring, with revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya. From this came a call came for a global day of protest -- October 15, 2011. Last summer, responding to frustration aimed at Wall Street, Adbusters magazine invited New Yorkers to "Occupy Wall Street" and air their grievances. Thousands showed up on September 17 and many have been there since.

Then more Americans began Occupying in their own cities. On October 15, cities from around the world joined in the call for Global Revolution. To date, nearly 2,500 towns and cities in over 80 countries have had or have ongoing peaceful protests. Never before in history have we seen this kind of unity as people all around the world add their voices to the growing discontent that stems from corporate greed and political manipulation.

The Global Occupy movement is grassroots at its rootiest. The seeds haven't been planted for long and are just beginning to germinate. Don't ask your local Occupy chapter for a demand; that is not what this is about. Not yet.

Each chapter is garnering resources, building support, working out technical issues like IT architecture and communication channels. Each chapter is doing this organically, independently of one another, and without any initial resources. Once each chapter is established enough to deal with local issues, the next step will presumably be for chapters around the world to unite under a banner of global economic, social, and political justice. Then, and only then, will they will be able to work together to formulate the demand that will fix the world.

I will leave you with a poem I wrote for my own meditation some years ago. It seems apt, somehow.

Impatiens

by Kat Code

Patiently, the seeds do wait

beneath the thawing ground.

Summer mustn’t come too late,

when flowers shall be found.

A lesson from the flowers:

I should not the spring forsake.

Essential are her hours,

for summer to awake.

Occupy Vancouver: It's Coming!

The following is a letter I sent to my elected officials at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. If you read this and stand with the 99%, I encourage you to get in touch with your elected officials as well.

With your postal code, you can

- find your MP here

- find your MLA here

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Katherine C. <######@gmail.com>

Date: 11 October 2011 23:36

Subject: Please read my letter regarding Occupy Vancouver

To: hedy.fry@parl.gc.ca, s.chandraherbert.mla@leg.bc.ca, gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, christy.clark.mla@leg.bc.ca

Dear Gregor Robertson, Spencer Chandra Herbert, Christy Clark, Hedy Fry, and Stephen Harper,

Everyone supporting Occupy Wall Street has at least one reason. Many people even share the same reasons. I'm asking you, my elected officials, to please read my story below, and listen to your other constituents joining their voices to the 99%, with an open mind and a willingness to move forward in a way that benefits us all.

The Short: A brief Summary

In 1995, I lived in Singapore and Indonesia. I watched President Suharto get re-elected and learned how precious democracy is; I thirsted for news and gained new appreciation for freedom of speech.

In 2001, I learned a language that helped me understand my dissatisfaction with the world. I tried to talk to my parents about ideology and oppression in the western world and was told to just accept the way things are because nothing's gonna change.

In 2005, I interned at a very influential Board of Trade and had to write a paper about the experience. I incorporated a central theme that explored how my "hippy heart" ideals are not a good fit for the hypocrisy of the business world.

Now it's 2011 and I find that I am in agreement with 99% of the population and that we are all dismayed by the way things are. The world and our understanding of it are changing but our leaders insist on governing as though society is static. I will proudly stand up on Saturday in solidarity with the 99%, challenging the 1% to rethink our relationship with the economy, with the environment, and with each other.

The Long

In 1994, my family moved to a rural pulp-mill town on Sumatra. The nearest city, Pakanbaru, was 80-120 minutes away, depending on the reckless skill of one's driver. Upriver from the mill, families lived in one- and two-bedroom huts anchored to the riverbank.

People fished in the roots and reeds at the edge of the jungle by the opposite bank, their small canoes little protection from the jungle's predators. Signs on dirt lanes pointed the way to family-planning clinics where Depo Provera has been doled out since it began clinical trials.

When election campaigns were underway, the three parties running were distinguished by three colours: red, yellow, green. I can't remember which was which, but it doesn't matter. My dad laid it out to me pretty clearly: The election was just a sham. Suharto was essentially a dictator who operated under a pretense of democracy. Little wonder that Indonesia was the world's most corrupt country at that time.

This was my summer home, my holiday home; there was no high school in Kerinci so my parents sent me to Singapore for grade 11. In Singapore, they'll fine you for selling chewing gum but you can sell your body if you have a work permit; they'll serve you alcohol at 18 but you have to be 21 to see an R-rated movie; they'll turn the latest developments in government-funded housing into breaking news but you have to find out about the policeman who was murdered with an axe just down the road via the maid's grapevine.

In Singapore, one of my best friends was dying of cancer because her Arabian father didn't think girls were worth the expense of medicine. Needless to say, when I moved back to Canada for grade 12 I wasn't the same girl who'd left.

When it came time for me to vote for the first time, I'd just returned from being abroad for four months and excused myself from the voting process. A quick foray into my options had revealed a lot of muck to wade through in order to make an informed decision; three days wasn't nearly enough time! With subsequent elections, I did make the effort, but was so dissatisfied by what each of the parties stood for that I told myself that not voting was, in a sense, still voicing my view.

Meanwhile, blinders that had started to shift when I was in Asia were slowly opening wider, but I was at a loss to explain what the brightening light revealed: I didn't know the words to express my increasingly negative thoughts about the way the world is run.

In 2001, I took a class called Ethnography of Vancouver's Downtown East Side, taught by the inimitable Dr. Michael M. Ames. Through him, I was introduced to writers and thinkers like John Ralston Saul, Antonio Gramsci, and Paulo Friere, among others. Words such as 'ideology' and 'hegemony' blew away the blinders; light flooded in and broadened my reality. Greater knowledge of things like capitalism, socialism, nationalism, oligarchies, deregulation, and trade gave definition to what I saw. My attempts to discuss this with my parents were brushed aside; the ideals I was leaning towards held no place in the "real world". Nor were they interested in a metaphysical discussion on the nature of reality.

Four years later found me interning at a Board of Trade (BOT). I looked forward to putting my new writing skills to use and to influential business leaders reading articles with my byline. I was even more stoked when, upon starting, I learned how actively and emphatically BOT promoted the Triple-Bottom Line. They hosted guest speakers, they penned books, they did a whole song and dance.

It took little time to reveal that every business maneuver they practiced and at least 80% of every word I wrote for them boiled down to one thing: The bottom line. The actions of BOT's business members were, for the most part, little better. Having clung to my ideals, I wanted nothing to do with that kind of hypocrisy. Coincidentally, this is the same year that I realized my non-voting stance was contrary to my ideals, and I stopped spoiling my ballots.

Now it's 2011. My dissatisfaction with the way the world is run has only increased. Questionable wars fought over false pretences; the increasing demand for finite and environmentally damaging energy sources; blatant abuses of power by elected and corporate officials; blatant abuses of trust by the media; rising illiteracy and childhood poverty rates; economies that eclipse both society and the environment...the list is long, and from Occupy Wall Street to the Occupies that have sprung up and continue to do so, we will all hear so many, many reasons that 99% of us are not happy with the way things are.

The pound, the dollar, the yen and the euro -- none of these are more precious or important than we the people and the earth that nourishes us. You cannot put a price on health and wellness; the results of a quality education; or a healthy environment. Sadly, too many leaders have proven themselves inept with their stewardship of land, citizenry and the economy, which is why the 99% are speaking out.

I will proudly stand up on Saturday in solidarity with the 99%, challenging the 1% to imaginatively and radically rethink our relationship with the economy, with the environment, and with each other.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

With hope for positive change,

Katherine C.

Vancouver, BC

######@gmail.com

How to vote in an election: 7 simple steps

Voting can be tough. Sometimes it seems easiest to throw our hands up and simply not do it. Especially when the choice comes down to the lesser of the evils, and we see little of our own values and attitudes reflected in political parties. And I’m not just talking about their attack ads, with all the petty finger pointing and playground petulance.

When we vote, we have a lot to think about. What are our values? What vision do we have of Canada’s future? What political party shares our values and vision? Which candidate in our riding can garner our support?

It’s easy not to look for too much information about the parties, their platforms, and individual candidates. We already suffer from information overload, and it seems news and campaign ads do a good enough job getting us the information we need to make informed voting decisions. Except they don’t.

To guide you through the voting process, here are a seven simple steps you can follow that will minimize your aggravation, curb your disgust and increase your personal satisfaction.

1. Stop watching or reading campaign ads. Seriously. Hit the mute button, turn the page, do a song and dance. Campaign ads are either a) self-aggrandizing, full of exaggeration and half truths, or b) smear jobs, full of exaggeration and half truths and often completely devoid of context. All this overinflated ego and disparaging negativity has gotta be bad for a person.
2. Don’t pay so much attention to election stories in the news. The news isn’t really that much better than a party’s paid ads. It is still biased, and in some ways can be more dangerous than ads. Because it is, after all, the news, and we still like to believe it gives us nothing but the truth. I'm not saying avoid it altogether, just don't put too much stock in what it does have to say. And sometimes what the news doesn’t cover is just as important as what it does cover.
3. Decide what is important to you for this election. There are lots of issues to choose from, from the fate of CBC to childcare to the state of the economy. This is where the news falls short, because it often focuses on issues raised by those running for office and doesn’t do much lip service to other issues. For example, I don’t think I’ve seen anything about internet billing in relation to the election on the airwaves.
4. Compare your values to political parties’ values. This actually involves a little bit of work on your part. Go online and find each party’s election platform. That’s where they say what their plans for our country are if they get into power. Don’t reject each platform out of hand, because you could end up rejecting them all! In the end, you might end up having to decide which platform you find least offensive. If you’re still having trouble, give the Vote Compass a try to see which party’s views are most like yours: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/votecompass/
5. Learn about the candidates in your riding. Visit www.elections.ca and enter your postal code under Voter Information Service to find out who your candidates are. Go to each of their websites. See what others in the community say about them, find out about their community involvement, and discover what plans they have for your community. Try not to let the parties they belong to shape your opinion of each candidate.
6. Stack your options up against one another. Maybe there’s a clear winner. If so, you’re lucky. If not, you may have to resort to writing lists of pros and cons, digging deeper for more information, doing some real hard thinking and soul-searching, or consulting a gypsy-shaman-witch doctor. Whatever works for ya.
7. Vote. Then go treat yourself to an ice-cream. Or a tasty microbrew or shot of fine whiskey. You deserve it, responsible, informed voter that you are.
   
   
   
   

Wine much?

Having dinner at a restaurant with a friend last night, we found ourselves discussing the merits of pouring a single serving of wine from a miniature carafe.

Does it give the wine a better chance to breathe on its short trip from bottle to table? Maybe small carafes serve to satisfy customers they're getting the expected amount of wine when a large glass makes any serving size seem smaller. Or is it a wasteful practice - an unnecessary step requiring extra labour; an extra dish to wash?

If it's the breathing thing, well, you can get special wine spouts that fit into the bottle and breathe into the wine while you pour. If it's to assuage customers' sense of fair value, they should know that the bigger the glass, the smaller the portion appears. And if not, too bad...we're talking water conservation here; preserving the environment. Which brings me to the third possibility.

Hello! Duh! Yes, this miniature carafe is the tool of a wasteful practice. In this day and age, all companies should recognize the value in the small steps they can take that 1) Are environmentally friendly and can be leveraged as such in ad campaigns and 2) save them money. It's kinda like a win-win.

This isn't a love poem

My lover's gone across the sea
so far away from me
He couldn't tell me that I'm dear
even were he near
My lover's flown into the sky
he thinks he'll make me cry
But when he lands back on the ground
no way I'll be around

I Cannot Be Silent

The following is an excerpt from Leo Tolstoy's "I Cannot Be Silent", an essay he wrote in 1908 in response to the drastic number of death sentences (something relatively unheard of in Russia prior to 1906) that were being carried out. Try replacing the word "revolutionary" with "terrorist" as you read it...

Even if no one knew what ought to be done to pacify "the people" -- the whole people... -- if no one knew this, it would still be evident that to pacify the people one ought not do do what only increases its irritation. Yet that is just what you are doing.

What you are doing, you do, not for the people but for yourselves, to retain the position you occupy, a position you consider advantageous but which is really a most pitiful and abominable one. So do not say that you do it for the people; that is not true! All the abominations you do are done for yourselves, for your own covetous, ambitious, vain, vindictive, personal ends, in order to continue for a little longer in the depravity in which you live and which seems to you desirable.

However much you may declare that all you do is done for the good of the people, men are beginning to understand you and despise you more and more, and to regard your measures of restraint and suppression not as you wish them to be regarded -- as the action of some kind of higher collective Being, the government -- but as the personal evil deeds of individual and evil self-seekers.

Then again you say: "The revolutionaries began all this, not we, and their terrible crimes can only be suppressed by firm measures" (so you call your crimes) "on the part of the government."

You say the atrocities committed by the revolutionaries are terrible.

I do not dispute it. I will add that besides being terrible they are stupid, and -- like your own actions -- fall beside the mark. Yet however terrible and stupid may be their actions -- all those bombs and tunnellings, those revolting murders and thefts of money -- still all these deeds do not come anywhere near the criminality and stupidity of the deeds you commit.

They are doing it just the same as you and for the same motives. They are in the same (I would say "comic" were its consequences not so terrible) delusion that men, having formed for themselves a plan of what in their opinion is the desirable and proper arrangement of society, have the right and possibility of arranging other people's lives according to that plan. The delusion is the same. These methods are violence of all kinds -- including taking life. And the excuse is that an evil deed committed for the benefit of many ceases to be immoral, and that therefore without offending against moral law, one may lie, rob, and kill whenever this tends to the realization of that supposed good condition for the many which we imagine that we know and can foresee, and which we wish to establish.

You government people call the acts of the revolutionaries "atrocities" and "great crimes"; but the revolutionaries have done and are doing nothing that you have not done, and done to an incomparably greater extent. They only do what you do; you keep spies, practise deception, and spread printed lies, and so do they. You take people's property by all sorts of violent means and use it as you consider best, and they do the same. You execute those whom you think dangerous, and so do they.

So you certainly cannot blame the revolutionaries while you employ the same immoral means as they do for the attainment of your aim. All that you can adduce for your own justification, they can equally adduce for theirs; not to mention that you do much evil that they do not commit, such as squandering the wealth of the nation, preparing for war, making war, subduing and oppressing foreign nationalities, and much else.

Revisiting Capitol-City Living

Wow, I really am a horrible blogger. Mahdi, are you still reading this? Are apologies required? Me thinks not really.

So I was scrolling over some past blogs when I was struck by a fit of giggles over how naive I once was about Victoria's charms. Yes, it's a beautiful city with plenty of trees and ocean and opportunities to appreciate both. Yes, going to school with a closely knit cohort made for a steady social life. And yes, the house on Gamble Place was ideally situated close to school and there was a lovely little park with a stream running through it just behind the property, where deer, woodpeckers, kingfishers, and even an owl hung out. But...

Let's begin with the move to Gamble Place. First there was a crazy lady who eavesdropped on everyone's phone calls and got mad at every little bump in the night - apparently she got quiet hours mixed up with silent hours. She had two cocker spaniels, one only mildly derranged and the other so messed up it acted like it had been abused. Crazy lady eventually got kicked out of the house at a financial loss to the owner. Then there was the gal who took offence at the request that she clean up after herself and created a feud, and continued to be a slob with attitude in the shared living spaces. She honestly thought it was other people's jobs to clean up after her. Last was the guy who didn't know how to be just friends with girls. He moved out after I told him that I'd call the police if he continued to harrass me. To sum up, never move to a house that's on any kind of street, avenue, or cul-de-sac named Gamble. The risk is too great.

But let's not forget Victoria's unofficial slogan: It's a city of the newly wed and nearly dead. Once school ended and our cohort broke up and went in many different directions, the truth of that slogan sunk in. Victoria's night life is totally geared towards 20-year-old students, which is fan-frigging-tabulous if all you want to do is get drunk, dance to some bad music, and gawk at the city's wanna-be gangsters. It's also a good city if you have a family and are entrenched in your career. But if you're single and nearing 30, it's the last place you want to start your career. This explains why all the people who told me I was going to love living in Victoria told me this in Vancouver.