Or, Premier Tim Houston reveals the long-standing corporate stranglehold on successive Nova Scotia governments and finally abandons the tether to democratic principles
The "sleeping giant" needs to come fully awake. That 's us folks! Time for letters (LOTS OF THEM); op eds; and, better yet, VISITS to our MLA's. Time to set up Town Halls in cities, towns, and villages. The current government did NOT campaign on the undemocratic plans/projects they have recently put into place. Houston, we have a problem.
everything is becoming much clearer for sure, including our own involvement (or complicity) in the neo-liberal/modernist/consumerist experiment. Whenever we speak dreamily of any form of renewable energy (that requires battery storage) we give our vote to the companies that mine the kinds of minerals that we don't want to see mined on our own turf. And yet, where do we suppose these 'rare earth' minerals come from.
I don't have an answer to how we dial this back, but if we continue to always look outward towards the politicians and corporate pricks that are clearly completely disassociated from their own biological tether to a living earth; but still desire and purchase the very products that these assholes profit from, then what? ARe we not also wilfully participating in this so-called experiement. Perhaps we can say only by degree and that therefore we are somehow partially absolved. But how many people who can afford to have bought a EV in the last few years and feel morally superior to all those other folks still driving their old gas guzzling beaters? How many people have clamped solar panels to their half a million to a million dollar homes and stood back, bedazzled by their own liberal enlightenment, meanwhile upholding the kinds of municipal policies that make it impossible for a person to build a shelter that doesn't require all the bells and whistles. Because such shelters will bring down the real estate value of their renewable houses.
It's a big mess
. In the end maybe we should all be riding donkeys (or newfoundland ponies), traveling only as far as our own feet or equines can carry us and eating cabbage and turnips in the winter time.
Love this. Yes it is a mess, and you've described it so well. There's also a very big part of me that would like to go back in time and live a much simpler life... I can't go back in time, but the second part of that is definitely possible.
Thanks for connecting the dots and calling attention to what's going on with these recent amendments to legislation. These are not inconsequential changes being made for no reason. There is a method to this madness.
Excellent article. So important that journalists - the few real ones left - keep on top of these increasingly horrific policies.
Re "He said the original proposed changes 'came out of a scan that looked to modernize the office by looking at best practices around Canada. This scan identified a variety of practices used across the country. There was never any intention on my part to change the existing Auditor General.' In a press release the Premier said his decision came 'after discussions with the [AG] and her team.' "
Such a steaming pile of self-exculpating horeshit. The first report I heard on CBC of the BlackRock Boy's intent to change the legislation quoted him as saying he was just going to bring NS's policy into line with that of other provinces. This when there were - according to this same report - only two others that had made such a frontal assault on AG independence. But since those two harmonized with his own authoritarian, anti-democratic instincts, those were the ones he chose to bring NS's "in line with" after his oh-so-disinterested "scan". For "after discussions with the AG and her team" read: "after an unanticipated backlash from a furious public."
Thanks, Brooks! I also wondered about how they define "best practices"? Because in this case it seems to be less job security and independence for the AG and more power and influence in the hands of the government. That could only be defined as "best practices" by a government that's up to no good. Might be a good FOI request... but then again, they might find my question "frivolous" or "vexacious."
"...but then again, they might find my question "frivolous" or "vexacious."
I'm sure they would! What could be more vexatious to a government wanting to hide its malfeasance than a journalist seeking to expose it? If that's the new standard for rejecting FOIs then that already-hobbled institution is basically finished.
It's difficult trying to explain to many folks that 45 years of policy implementation has led us to where we are today. (Yes, we can practically pinpoint 1980, the era where Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney, et al., decided our global economic system needed some "tweaking.") Privatizing, downsizing, deregulating, less taxes, less social/public spending, smaller and weaker social safety nets, etc., have all led us to this place where corporate interests (and the governments and politicians they employ) have near full control of our democracies. A class of billionaires now control societies (oligarchy) and more than half of us appear to be cheering them on -- eerily, in a manner very reminiscent of Hobbes's idea of the "tyranny of the masses."
How we got here isn't all that difficult to figure out. How we get out of the mess is quite a bit trickier. Can we inform and educate the public so that our democracies (which are always dependent on informed voters) might become functional? We seem to be stuck Between a rock and a hard place (like mining and fracking) with no clear path forward. Stuck somewhere in the middle of the tyranny of the masses with (as the song goes) "clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right."
I wish I could be 'solutions-oriented' in my comment here, but right now solutions evade me. As an environmentalist -- or as Houston would most certainly call me, a Special Interest advocate -- all I've got are Jewish Currents Magazine Chief Editor, Arielle Angel's, words regarding Gaza: "I don't do this work because I have any hope for the future'. I do this work because it's the right thing to do."
I totally agree and thank you for posting your thoughts here. I think many of the solutions to what we're facing are the exact things the environmental movement has advocated for, for a long long time: think globally, act locally. The more local the better. That's where the solutions lie, I think. But of course we have to be aware of the bigger picture and what the drivers are if we're ever going to be able to derail this trajectory.
Linda, I have been looking at this for a while. I have been wondering what you think of https://www.kiclei.ca/ Do you know about localism over globalism? Not that we internalize ourselves to not think global but that we need to look after what we have been blessed with here.
Another thing I don’t understand is this. https://news.dataforcities.org/2019/08/canadas-annapolis-valley-has-been.html?m=1 Said in the article…. if [this data becomes attractive to investors] all over the globe, where does this leave us? Are we concentrating on the needs here or ‘way over there?” By the WCCD evaluation, the Annapolis Valley is a pretty special place! Well, it is to us too but we loose control when the mindsets of the WEF are infiltrated into all levels of gov’t. Such as a one world gov’t, 15 minute cities (Smart Cities)surveillance, monitoring, analysis, reporting and technologies.
I would love some of your insights on these topics as I watch Tim Houston. Things seem to be really off the wall. He flips from promoting zero emissions and phasing out gas powered cars by 2030-50, to fracking and mining. The links I have shared and my comments might not settle well with some. I am not politically inclined but I am a critical thinker. And I need to ask these questions . I talk with my MLA and Councillor. They are so politically inclined they don’t see the forest for the trees. Your comment made me think you are the first I could honestly ask these questions to and not be lambasted for asking them. Thanks so much for your insights about what I have posted. 💁♀️
No lambasting here. I have never heard of the World Council on City Data (WCCD) -- or the ISO certification it provides, so I really can't comment on that without looking into it more. Same goes for KICLEI -- I'll have to look at it. But, I was thinking more about what I said in a comment about thinking globally and acting locally -- and in some ways it is an important way to view things because unless we know about global trends (such as biodiversity and habitat loss, for instance) how will we know to do better and protect these things in our communities, and backyards even? Something I've been meaning to look more at is something called "subsidiarity" -- which is a principle that encourages local decision-making and the sharing of power between different levels of government. It's based on the idea that issues should be handled at the closest level possible. I really like this, and first heard about it from low-growth advocate Peter Victor (he's written about overshoot and there is an interview I did with him in the archive). When it comes to the other concerns you've raised -- surveillance etc. -- I am very concerned about everything related to that and have written quite a bit about it -- again take a look through the archive. There is a 3-part series I did called "Remote Control" in which I explore some of this. I think people need to talk about all this because it's being implemented without much if any public input and the capabilities of technologies like 5G for instance, can be actually quite dystopian.
Looks to me once you read about KICLEI, you will be pleasantly surprised. Maggie Braun the founder of KICLEI has plans to visit Nova Scotia this summer. We are a group welcoming others to support her and their mission.
The "sleeping giant" needs to come fully awake. That 's us folks! Time for letters (LOTS OF THEM); op eds; and, better yet, VISITS to our MLA's. Time to set up Town Halls in cities, towns, and villages. The current government did NOT campaign on the undemocratic plans/projects they have recently put into place. Houston, we have a problem.
everything is becoming much clearer for sure, including our own involvement (or complicity) in the neo-liberal/modernist/consumerist experiment. Whenever we speak dreamily of any form of renewable energy (that requires battery storage) we give our vote to the companies that mine the kinds of minerals that we don't want to see mined on our own turf. And yet, where do we suppose these 'rare earth' minerals come from.
I don't have an answer to how we dial this back, but if we continue to always look outward towards the politicians and corporate pricks that are clearly completely disassociated from their own biological tether to a living earth; but still desire and purchase the very products that these assholes profit from, then what? ARe we not also wilfully participating in this so-called experiement. Perhaps we can say only by degree and that therefore we are somehow partially absolved. But how many people who can afford to have bought a EV in the last few years and feel morally superior to all those other folks still driving their old gas guzzling beaters? How many people have clamped solar panels to their half a million to a million dollar homes and stood back, bedazzled by their own liberal enlightenment, meanwhile upholding the kinds of municipal policies that make it impossible for a person to build a shelter that doesn't require all the bells and whistles. Because such shelters will bring down the real estate value of their renewable houses.
It's a big mess
. In the end maybe we should all be riding donkeys (or newfoundland ponies), traveling only as far as our own feet or equines can carry us and eating cabbage and turnips in the winter time.
Love this. Yes it is a mess, and you've described it so well. There's also a very big part of me that would like to go back in time and live a much simpler life... I can't go back in time, but the second part of that is definitely possible.
Thanks for connecting the dots and calling attention to what's going on with these recent amendments to legislation. These are not inconsequential changes being made for no reason. There is a method to this madness.
Excellent article. So important that journalists - the few real ones left - keep on top of these increasingly horrific policies.
Re "He said the original proposed changes 'came out of a scan that looked to modernize the office by looking at best practices around Canada. This scan identified a variety of practices used across the country. There was never any intention on my part to change the existing Auditor General.' In a press release the Premier said his decision came 'after discussions with the [AG] and her team.' "
Such a steaming pile of self-exculpating horeshit. The first report I heard on CBC of the BlackRock Boy's intent to change the legislation quoted him as saying he was just going to bring NS's policy into line with that of other provinces. This when there were - according to this same report - only two others that had made such a frontal assault on AG independence. But since those two harmonized with his own authoritarian, anti-democratic instincts, those were the ones he chose to bring NS's "in line with" after his oh-so-disinterested "scan". For "after discussions with the AG and her team" read: "after an unanticipated backlash from a furious public."
Keep up the great work, Linda!
Thanks, Brooks! I also wondered about how they define "best practices"? Because in this case it seems to be less job security and independence for the AG and more power and influence in the hands of the government. That could only be defined as "best practices" by a government that's up to no good. Might be a good FOI request... but then again, they might find my question "frivolous" or "vexacious."
"...but then again, they might find my question "frivolous" or "vexacious."
I'm sure they would! What could be more vexatious to a government wanting to hide its malfeasance than a journalist seeking to expose it? If that's the new standard for rejecting FOIs then that already-hobbled institution is basically finished.
this is a great article--Houston is teetering on fascism. And as we have seen it's a speedy fall.
Feel free to share it, Judy!
It's difficult trying to explain to many folks that 45 years of policy implementation has led us to where we are today. (Yes, we can practically pinpoint 1980, the era where Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney, et al., decided our global economic system needed some "tweaking.") Privatizing, downsizing, deregulating, less taxes, less social/public spending, smaller and weaker social safety nets, etc., have all led us to this place where corporate interests (and the governments and politicians they employ) have near full control of our democracies. A class of billionaires now control societies (oligarchy) and more than half of us appear to be cheering them on -- eerily, in a manner very reminiscent of Hobbes's idea of the "tyranny of the masses."
How we got here isn't all that difficult to figure out. How we get out of the mess is quite a bit trickier. Can we inform and educate the public so that our democracies (which are always dependent on informed voters) might become functional? We seem to be stuck Between a rock and a hard place (like mining and fracking) with no clear path forward. Stuck somewhere in the middle of the tyranny of the masses with (as the song goes) "clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right."
I wish I could be 'solutions-oriented' in my comment here, but right now solutions evade me. As an environmentalist -- or as Houston would most certainly call me, a Special Interest advocate -- all I've got are Jewish Currents Magazine Chief Editor, Arielle Angel's, words regarding Gaza: "I don't do this work because I have any hope for the future'. I do this work because it's the right thing to do."
I totally agree and thank you for posting your thoughts here. I think many of the solutions to what we're facing are the exact things the environmental movement has advocated for, for a long long time: think globally, act locally. The more local the better. That's where the solutions lie, I think. But of course we have to be aware of the bigger picture and what the drivers are if we're ever going to be able to derail this trajectory.
Linda, I have been looking at this for a while. I have been wondering what you think of https://www.kiclei.ca/ Do you know about localism over globalism? Not that we internalize ourselves to not think global but that we need to look after what we have been blessed with here.
Another thing I don’t understand is this. https://news.dataforcities.org/2019/08/canadas-annapolis-valley-has-been.html?m=1 Said in the article…. if [this data becomes attractive to investors] all over the globe, where does this leave us? Are we concentrating on the needs here or ‘way over there?” By the WCCD evaluation, the Annapolis Valley is a pretty special place! Well, it is to us too but we loose control when the mindsets of the WEF are infiltrated into all levels of gov’t. Such as a one world gov’t, 15 minute cities (Smart Cities)surveillance, monitoring, analysis, reporting and technologies.
I would love some of your insights on these topics as I watch Tim Houston. Things seem to be really off the wall. He flips from promoting zero emissions and phasing out gas powered cars by 2030-50, to fracking and mining. The links I have shared and my comments might not settle well with some. I am not politically inclined but I am a critical thinker. And I need to ask these questions . I talk with my MLA and Councillor. They are so politically inclined they don’t see the forest for the trees. Your comment made me think you are the first I could honestly ask these questions to and not be lambasted for asking them. Thanks so much for your insights about what I have posted. 💁♀️
No lambasting here. I have never heard of the World Council on City Data (WCCD) -- or the ISO certification it provides, so I really can't comment on that without looking into it more. Same goes for KICLEI -- I'll have to look at it. But, I was thinking more about what I said in a comment about thinking globally and acting locally -- and in some ways it is an important way to view things because unless we know about global trends (such as biodiversity and habitat loss, for instance) how will we know to do better and protect these things in our communities, and backyards even? Something I've been meaning to look more at is something called "subsidiarity" -- which is a principle that encourages local decision-making and the sharing of power between different levels of government. It's based on the idea that issues should be handled at the closest level possible. I really like this, and first heard about it from low-growth advocate Peter Victor (he's written about overshoot and there is an interview I did with him in the archive). When it comes to the other concerns you've raised -- surveillance etc. -- I am very concerned about everything related to that and have written quite a bit about it -- again take a look through the archive. There is a 3-part series I did called "Remote Control" in which I explore some of this. I think people need to talk about all this because it's being implemented without much if any public input and the capabilities of technologies like 5G for instance, can be actually quite dystopian.
It sounds as though once you look at KICLEI you win be pleased what you read.
The Annapolis River would be a World Heritage site were it not for contamination from agricultural runoff. The WCCD might want to contact the UN.
Looks to me once you read about KICLEI, you will be pleasantly surprised. Maggie Braun the founder of KICLEI has plans to visit Nova Scotia this summer. We are a group welcoming others to support her and their mission.
Thank you, Linda, for your ongoing work. I look to you as one of the minds (and hearts) I trust to help me understand all of the threads.
I appreciate your insights and unwavering tenacity in uncovering the truth, as always. Thank you.