Cops are above the law

24 counts of sexual harassment and yet again, they can't prosecute him. The statue of limitations - amount of time after a crime is committed that you can't be charged for it - is six months for cops, instead of the better part of decade for the rest of us. Even if that crime has nothing to do with "enforcing the law" (in fact, causes problems for other people trying to enforce it), police are still, effectively, above the law.

Sure, he was investigated, and slapped with a brutal punishment - "suspension with pay". $92 000 a year (and this goes back a few years) to go on vacation. That's the kind of "punishment" most of us play the lottery for. And it's the same thing they gave the cop who shot Dudley George. These people are very nearly above the law.

Does anyone see the irony here?

Think about this garbage the next time a cop tells you that they can't "let you off" for riding a bike without a bell or having a half-gram of weed on you - because
"the law" is so bloody important. This isn't about "the law" or "justice" this is about power. Their power over us.

In the news today: Franco's Crimes Under Scrutiny Again

Spanish courts are battling over an investigation into the roughly 114 000 people who went "missing" during and after Spain's Civil War which broke out in 1936. At issue is an amnesty on crimes committed by Generalissimo Francisco Franco's Falange (fascist) party which ruled the country into the '70s. For those who aren't framilliar with Franco, he siezed power via a military coup in the unstable political climate which purvaded great-depression-era Europe. With the help of Hitler and Mussolini he fought a brutal civil war against the Republicans, a motley crew of democrats, communists (backed by Russia), anarchists and a host of international volunteers from the allied nations such as George Orwell and Ernest Hemmingway. As the coup was happening civil society (largely Spain's radical unions) reacted - not by protesting or holding a vigil, but by raiding the armories and taking on the army directly. At their height anarchist and syndicalist trade unions such as the CNT had established anarchist collectives encompasing several million people and great territories. The allied nations themselves, hoping to appease Hitler and avoid a revolution in Western Europe signed a non-intervention treaty which essentially handed the country to the Fascists and made it illegal to join the Republicans. Resistance fell apart slightly before the dawn of WW2 when the Russian-backed communists turned on the others (hoping to establish a social democracy so as not to offend the west) and a battered Spain managed to mostly stay out of the war (sending only a few volunteers) then enjoyed decades of American support for their anti-communist stance during the cold war.

The story did, though, have a happy ending. Franco reigned till the end of his life and attempted to re-establish the Spanish Monarchy, which fit with his traditionalist conservative views. He picked Juan Carlos as a successor and arranged to hand over dictatorial power to him upon his death. Upon gaining power, Juan Carlos managed to re-establish the Spanish democracy in two weeks flat, thus ending 40 years of fascist power.

If martial law was declared tomorrow, and threats have been made lately, would you be ready? Or will we be waiting for a judge's decision as to whether the "disappearances" were really crimes against humanity 70 years later?

I'm generally a fan of graffiti. Nothing tells you a city, neighbourhood or space is lived in quite like a mosaic of tags, etchings, murals, stencils and pasties. Much of it takes amazing skill (try it sometime, spray cans aren't the most forgiving medium), and some of the most impressive artwork I've ever seen was done under cover of night under highways and train bridges. Since the first cave paintings, graffiti has remained a crucial form of cultural expression, coming even from the most marginalized sectors of society. It conveys messages, from the political to the pure and simple DM+CG 4EVR.

It is art.

It's not locked up in some pay-to-enter sterilized, carefully planned art gallery. It's not a sign of "high society" that one can show off to their friends at bourgeois cocktail parties or hang in their office to demonstrate their fat wallet and "high taste". It's not censored (except by other graffiti), it's not always liked and it certainly not always beautiful or polite, but a big black marker is about as free as expression gets when it comes to the written word.

Yes, some graffiti is used by gangs to mark their territory. But most isn't. And frankly, if your area's got a gang problem, you have bigger things to worry about (poverty, racism, hopelessness etc) than a few naughty lines. And yes, sometimes it's racist, but this, too, is rare, and nearly always is dealt with by other graffiti artists.

Does it make a neighbourhood look bad? It's funny how that argument doesn't hold for the Starbucks on Locke, or that hundred story Freudiansim that Harry Stinson wanted to build in the Howard Johnson parking lot. The fact is, the more you crack down, the worse graffiti you get. Graffiti never goes away. I've traveled tens of thousands of kilometres and seen city after city. Not one had managed to eliminate graffiti. What many had, though, unlike our endless procession of tags which look like something from a third-grade lesson in cursive writing, was unbelievably beautiful and intricate murals. Taking a train out of any major station in Europe will give you at least a mile of pieces. Those never could have been done under crackdowns like the one we are experiencing at the moment, and wouldn't have been worth it if they could - they'd have been painted over. Tolerating some degree of public art, especially when it's in spaces like train yards which aren't trying to be beautiful anyways (in away, I'd agree, they are, but I'd say graffiti adds to that), why not let it be and focus on protecting spaces where it shouldn't be? I'll agree, nobody wants some joker to come by and bomb their garage, but big drab concrete pillars, postboxes (esp. those gray ones), train cars and are nobody's personal property. If somebody wants to go out and make the city more beautiful, then let's encourage them - if it's beautiful, let it stay - the best guarantee of not getting tagged is a big, nice mural (commissioned or not). We should explicitly decriminalize artwork on a certain class of public space (not a handfull of "public walls") - bare, boring walls, sidewalk tiles, highway overpasses and the like. Set people free to express themselves.

Cracking down does nothing but scare away the real artists. Good graffiti, like good oil painting or sculpting, takes time. Nobody wants to be busted, and nobody wants 30 hours of their work painted over, or to be tied to a truly remarkable set of tags. Since nature abhors a vacuum, others will step in to fill it, and that's where you get some of the crap which adorns our city. Someone will always step in. The answer to this crackdown? Chillen. Big, bold blasts of paint tagging his name in 20-30 foot letters, as well as his ubiquitous tags on every bus shelter in sight. One colour, no finesse, just a great big fuck you to everyone in charge.

Graffiti artists have a responsibility here too. The public is not going to support graffiti until it sees something it likes, and in general, it doesn't. As much of a fuck-you as the 10-billion Keenur tags around town were, they don't add much to public space. Paint something beautiful, informative or thoughtful, or at least something that encourages other people to get involved.

Ultimately, to me, it's the romance that does it. A dark night with a black hoodie and a bag full of cans, so quiet you can hear your heart pounding and just waiting to see the cherry lights of a cruiser swing around the corner at any time. The graffiti artist is a person who puts his own freedom on the line to give art to the world...can you claim as noble a purpose?

So this post goes out to Keenur, with the best of hopes for your trial, and for all the others caught up in the city's latest "cleanup". This goes out to Chillen, for being big, bold and loud. It goes out to everyone who's ever stayed up late cutting stencils out of old cereal boxes and everyone who knows just how loud that little ball bearing can be when you're shaking a can on a cold, dark and deathly quiet night. And, with all the love and thanks I can muster, it goes out to everyone who ever helped me keep from getting bored in an otherwise unremarkable toilet stall.

Once again, Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada, leading a now-strenghtened minority government. Fuckin' awesome.

One more triumphant victory of Canadian "democracy". $300 million dollars down the drain halfway through a term, with the lowest federal voter turnout ever (59.1%, a number which has been dropping for decades), to tell us what we already know about Canadian Parliament - the "left", though favoured by the Canadian public, is divided, while the Conservative Alliance is not. Less than 40% of voters (which ignores the over 40% which did not vote, and those who are not eligible to vote) support him, but thanks to our archaic electoral system, he is still the boss. Thank Allah, Jesus and the Buddhas that he does not have a majority.

I guess this is what we get for not all giving up on the Bloc, NDP and Greens in favour of the Liberals. That's what they told us to do, right? That our own beliefs about policy came second to the need to keep Harper out of power (and, concequently, return them to their traditional majority position). But when it's their turn to sacrifice on their policy matters, that's simply not an option - just like last time, they've completely dismissed the idea of forming a coalition with the NDP and Bloc, something which, in all honesty, Canadians voted for. The liberal party is out of touch, corrupt, complacent, and has become much more right wing than Canadians are comfortable with, and no amount of blaming the NDP or Greens for "splitting the vote" will change that. Parliament was supposed to be about discussion and compromise - passing only the bills which were supported by the majority of members, not simply whichever party got the most votes. Or so I thought. As Harper's proved with this whole joke of an election, these parties are only interested in one thing - majority government - the ability to pass bills without consulting anybody elected by the rest of Canadians. Majority governments, though almost never actually representing a majority of votes (and why, prey-tell, is 51% the magic number, anyways, rather than 67% or 76%?) are essentially one-party rule, with everyone else showing up only to fill seats and give whiny soundbites. I suppose we can expect another farce such as this in 2 years or less.

Using these useless, archaic and altogether obnoxious parties as proxies for the actual will of the Canadian public is proving, once again, to be a failure. We can't actually introduce bills or veto them, we can't strike down existing laws (some notable examples with around 90% public opposition would be marijuna prohibition or municipal amalgamation), we can't recall "representatives" no matter how badly they misrepresent us, we can't veto a war or stop one while it's happening, and we have no legal means of succeeding from confederation should we desire to (as Quebec shows). The Candian people have no right to actual participation in the process, short of taking an issue to a judge - someone who is neither elected nor answerable to the will of the people. This is not democracy. And this is why people don't vote. Ask them, it's not because they don't care - they do - most of them are mad as hell about all of these assholes, they just don't feel that marking an X in a circle once every couple of years is going to change any of it.

There is one bright, shining silver lining, though. Larry DiIanni, former Mayor of Hamilton, lost once again. His supporters (like Spec columnist Andrew Dreschel) downplayed the fact that his last election win was the result of cheating - something he was convicted of and slapped firmly on the wrist for. Unfortunately one doesn't get disqualified from elections for cheating like one does in school or sports, but fortunately, voters have a long memory, and are really fucking tired of being cheated.

The world can breathe a great sigh of relief today as oil prices have just dipped below $90 per barrel in today's orgy of falling markets. There's no telling how far this may go, as prices approach half of their peak just a few months ago. This will, of course, lead to decreases in everything from bus fares to food prices, and hopefully help restore some stability to our battered financial system.

Candidates like Jack Layton would like to see gas prices regulated. That could have worked. Many others would have liked Saudi Arabia to ramp up production to drop prices to this point (if possible). But, ultimately, oil prices found their own way to come down on their own accord...they triggered the biggest economic meltdown in nearly a century.

The American dream of low-density suburban housing connected by freeways of gas-guzzling life-sized Tonka trucks, all built quickly and cheaply and mortgaged/leased/rented to consumers with a host of money-sucking financing plans relies heavily on cheap oil. Without it we can't import cheap, chemically grown tomatoes from Mexico, and without those we'd have to keep growing FOOD south of Rymal to feed ourselves, and that land would not be sold off by failing family farmers (thanks to the amount of financing they need for all those nifty pesticides, chemicals, copywrited seeds and mega-tractors). Without it we couldn't keep millions empolyed in industries like automobiles (some estimates put it at one quarter of America's jobs), airlines or trucking, and that means people can't keep paying those absurd financing plans off.

Our economy, for better or worse (usually worse) runs upon a seemingly magical game of numbers, which may generate tons of wealth, but usually only involves a few percentage points of grown on the whole each year. When on of the fundamental commodities (oil) goes up in price from 4-7 times what it was at the dawn of the decade, it isn't hard to wipe out those few points. Keep in mind that oil production hasn't really dropped, it's only plateaued for a few short years while demand increased, and this is the havok it hath wrought. In another decade or two, once pumping has really begun to decline and production has shifted from cheap and easy desert wellheads to multi-billion dollar tar sands megaprojects and deep sea arctic drilling, we'll begin to see the true cost of a lifestyle based on cheap fuel.

With any luck, this drop in commodity prices and fall in stock prices will encourage people to get back on their feet, buy a few bargain-priced stocks and maybe fill up their Ford. But that won't solve the problem. Our economy is based around the fantasy world of Wall Street ballance sheets and not the realities of a finite, living planet, and until we walk away from that, we'll still be in danager of this kind of collapse.

Maybe, though, it's for the best. Had the dinosaurs never died out, we would never have evolved. And now, in the midst of the biggest mass extinction since then, maybe a different kind of dinosaur has to move on to make room for the new guys. Right below BBC's pile of stories on today's financial mayhem there was something from the science section which stood out - at least 25% of the world's mammal species are now facing extinction, and that's a conservative estimate. This represents a bigger loss than every company on Wal-Street, a massacre of this world's living genetic heritige, and a crime for which future generations will likely never be able to forgive us. If that's going to be the legacy of all the "progress" and "development" from Wal-Street, then maybe all of this is for the best.

The bailout is winning. The markets are stable again, for the moment. The shot heard 'round the world is still shattering banks and triggering buyouts. Bankers, investors and financiers are getting $700 billion, not out of the public purse, but borrowed (likely from many of the same bankers, investors and financiers), and stick the American people with the mortgage payments. They lost one of the biggest bets in history, and had to dip into the family savings account to save their kneecaps.

The history of slavery is replete with "debts" and other forms of economic tribute that keep people working. Public debt is one of the most insidious, because it means that a whole country is on the hook, regardless of their actions. While it's still exploitation to take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from working families for student loans, mortgages and credit card debts, at least the families got something out of it. Public debt of this sort (not used for building schools, hospitals or roads), often lent by global loan sharks like the IMF and World Bank, entire regions (Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America etc), but going to line the pockets of former dictators, or to fund brutal war machines which tortured these populations, is destroying much of the third world today. With this boost, as well as the Iraq War, Bush has now effectively tripled the American National Debt over his reign, a number which already boggled the minds of anyone watching before he got into power (it was fairly stable until the beginning of the Reagan years, and has exploded ever since). Conservatives....right.

The whole thing would be really funny if it hadn't been the latest and most terrifying shockwave sent out by a collapse of the US debt market, caused precisely by this kind of reckless borrowing, and precisely by the people we are now bailing out.

It'd also be a lot funnier if we hadn't seen exactly the same kind of stupidity erupt in the late 80s, when the Savings and Loans crisis (another bank crisis caused by investment schemes to "beat the risk in the markets") caused a similar bailout, though only about a tenth of the size of what's now being talked about, to ensure the economy wouldn't come crumbling down around us.

This reminds me of an old Agatha Christie murder mystery - the lights are out, AIG's Down, Freddy May and Fannie Mac are slumped over each other's corpses and B&B is on life support. A crack of lighting shatters the darkness, showing, for an instant, the ghoulish faces of bankers and glint of razor-sharp letter-openers. Everything you've read about corporate consolidation in the financial sector is about to happen again, overnight. When the dust settles, who will be left standing? Whoever it is,
they're going to end up holding all the chips.

And whoever ends up with those chips, you can guarantee it won't be you or me. We'll be stuck with the bill, one more to add to the pile. Much like the Great Depression wasn't REALLY that much of a change for working-class people (having suffered immeasurably in the post-war period), this won't be all that different for us. We're already used to having every dime we spend shaved off on all sides to pay for financing of stores, trucks, factories and farms, not to mention our own homes, cars, educations and government - our society gave up on paying for anything up front (beyond $50, and sometimes not even that), and now exists nearly entirely on credit. And if you decide not to play the game, you get screwed worst of all. Tenants often pay the worst mortgages (long term with nothing down) to "build equity" for their landlords. And the less credit cards, loans and bills you've paid (some would say, a sign of great financial prudence), the "riskier" you are, giving you even worse loans - guilty until proven innocent. Those at the bottom of society's ladders are forced to get by cashing paycheques for a 3% charge (imagine if your taxes went up 3%!?!) and getting payday loans when they need to make up the difference.

Where's my bailout? Where's the bailout for the single mother trying to feed her kids, or one of the hundreds of Volvo workers who just got laid off? These are people's real lives, their homes and their careers, not just the money they had kicking around to throw into the hedge fund market.

This is capital. This is society's productive side - the money that owns the factories, farms, mines and malls. They bet. They failed. They're losing everything. And so we, the working people, need to borrow more money - capital - to keep it all working. We work, we make payments. That's capitalism.