11 members of a workforce (the 'security force') of 10,000 sent home (see story at the foot of the page) was an "extremely minimal number."

But if one window gets broken and a little paint spilled it triggers (!) a massive security response.......

It's all about security

For a full size image of this poster.....

If nothing happens to threaten 'security' security forces will say 'see, we did a good job.'

If something happens they will say 'see, we were needed'.It's a 'post 9-11' version of nuclear deterrence.

(CP) - 56 minutes ago

FORT SASKATCHEWAN, Alberta -- Shell Canada vowed to ramp up security to keep protesters out of its properties after Greenpeace activists scaled smokestacks and a construction crane to unfurl banners at an oilsands upgrader expansion project northeast of Edmonton.

After spending 24 hours roped high up on the structures near Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., the Greenpeace activists were arrested by members of a special police climbing team just after 5 a.m. Sunday at Shell's Scottford project.

"It was a peaceful resolution to what could have been a very dangerous situation," said RCMP spokesman Cpl. Darren Anderson.

In Calgary, Shell spokesman Phil Vircoe expressed concern about "Greenpeace's unsafe and confrontational tactics. This placed their own safety at risk and also the safety of others who were on site at that time and throughout this process."

Four protesters had agreed to an RCMP request to climb down from their perches Saturday evening after hours of negotiations.

But nine others refused to budge, and members of an RCMP and Edmonton Police Service climbing team donned ropes and harnesses and scaled the towering structures to arrest them, said Anderson, the RCMP spokesman.

"These police officers are specially trained in rappelling and use of ropes and have some background in mountaineering training as well," he said.

Many of the protesters agreed to climb down using their own equipment, Anderson said. But two of them refused to descend on their own and had to be brought down by the police team.

A total of 16 Greenpeace protesters were arrested during the incident.

Charges, including mischief and breaking and entering, were expected to be laid against all of them and they were expected to appear in court at a later date, Anderson said.

Mike Hudema, a Greenpeace activist who remained outside the plant, said the people who took part in the protest are passionate about trying to draw attention to an industry his group blames for dramatically increasing greenhouse gases.

"Every activist that was in there was prepared to be arrested and was willing to face the repercussions of that to hopefully push our world leaders to turn away from toxic developments like the tarsands," Hudema said.

The protest began early Saturday morning. Streaming video on a Greenpeace website from climbers dangling above massive storage tanks and a network of large metal pipes showed protesters unfurling banners that read "Climate Crime" and "Climate S.O.S."

After mounting several such protests in recent weeks at Alberta oilsands facilities, Hudema said he hoped that interrupting the industry's activities helped Greenpeace make its point about the oilsands industry.

"We've been able to stop at least a portion of the damage that the tarsands are doing to our planet. I think that's one thing that we've accomplished," he said.

Shell officials said the latest protest did not affect the neighbouring petrochemical refinery in Fort Saskatchewan and was confined to an area under construction, where few employees were working at the time.

Last month, protesters chained themselves to heavy earth-moving equipment at a Shell oilsands mine near Fort McMurray, Alta., bringing work at one pit to a halt. They were not charged in that incident.

Nearly a week ago, 10 protesters were arrested trying to block shipments of thick tar-like bitumen to a Suncor plant near Fort McMurray.

Hudema said the latest action was aimed at nudging negotiators to look for greener options at a climate-change conference in Bangkok. Officials there are paving the way to a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Vircoe said Shell has launched a full-scale audit to determine how security at the Fort Saskatchewan site was breached and to fix any problems.

The number of security staff there has been increased and protocols tightened, including increased patrolling of the perimeter of the fenced-in site, he said.

The latest incident has also highlighted the need for the industry as a whole to be more vigilant about security, Vircoe said.

"The incident serves as a reminder, a stern reminder, that our industry must work even harder to strengthen our approach to security across the province here in Alberta and right across the country," he said.

Premier Ed Stelmach has expressed frustration at the number of protesters who've been able to gain access to such sites in recent weeks, and has said they are being coddled while breaking the law.

"We understand his frustration and we share his concerns around security at all of the various energy sites across the province," Vircoe said.

As to whether company officials are coddling the protesters in allowing their actions to go on for several hours at a time, Vircoe said the company's main goal is to ensure the safety of everyone involved.

"Our concern, right from the very beginning, is for the safety of the activists, to make sure nobody gets hurt, the safety of our employees on the site and any of the public who are in the area around the facilities," Vircoe said.

-By Lisa Arrowsmith in Edmonton.

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

<Critical Mass is a monthly cycle ride in Vancouver, growing in popularity each month, which has start points and a destination but no planned route between these.>

So let me get this straight. The gasoline addicted drivers, the Mayor (Happy Planet) and the Chief of Police (I see a stapler) don't like the once a month Critical Mass bike ride because it is not formally organized, doesn't post its route in advance, may delay the journeys of others and can cause tension with other road users.

What exactly then is the twice daily car commute? Drivers in their tens of thousands leave their houses without posting a formal route, join in what is essentially a huge game of follow my leader without any rules, able to change direction and route without any consultation, cause massive gridlock, pollution and delays for others, and slow down or endanger travellers using other modes of movement.

This lemming like event happens twice a day, every working day and yet is seen as normal. Isn't this the point of the Critical Mass monthly ride? By reducing the situation to the absurd it forces us to reconsider what we see as normal, and view car obsession and commuting as repetitive, thoughtless and addicted behaviour.

Imagine the response if car drivers ('...because there are so many involved...') had to post their routes in advance, keep the police informed of their overall intentions, identify leaders, and enter into discussions with the authorities about the effect of their journeys on other road users.

Sort of harm reduction for gasoline addicts. Sounds fine to me.

In the flush of bidding for and winning the right to host the Olympics, nobody talked about how staging them might mean limiting civil liberties.

It's only now, with seven months until the 2010 Winter Games begin, that organizers and compliant politicians are revealing plans to make it more difficult to exercise our fundamental constitutional rights to free speech, peaceful assembly and free expression.

For months now, police have been knocking on the doors of known activists and tracking them down in their neighbourhoods to "chat" about their Olympic protest plans. But that's only part of it.

An omnibus bylaw that staff insists is "critical to the success of the Games" goes to Vancouver city council today.

The bylaw relaxes rules for Games-related events, limits free expression and speech in public and private spaces, and grants sweeping discretionary powers to Mayor Gregor Robertson and City Manager Penny Ballem to do whatever is "warranted," "necessary or desirable" to ensure the Olympics' "safety and security" and "protection of commercial rights."

It also claims none of this is intended to impact political expression or the right to lawful protest.

That might not be the intent, but it may be the result. And rather chillingly, we may never know whether any of this is legal because there's little time left for anyone to initiate a court case against these rights-challenging changes before the Olympics begin in February.

Want to congratulate Mike Cote and Clearwater for this noble action?

He can be emailed here: mcote@clearwaterenviro.com

or phoned at 604-313-3837

July 3, 2009
Demolition company refuses work at Little Mountain housing complex
Project Manager attends July 4 rally to protest the demolition

Clearwater Environmental Group is a demolition company that refuses to bid on the demolition of the 224 social housing units at Little Mountain. "What the government is doing here is not right. They should not be taking down homes before they have a plan to build anything", says Mike Cote, Project Manager for the company.

Cote attended a government sponsored information meeting for prospective demolition companies on Tuesday, June 30 and left as soon as he understood the situation. "We thought these homes were coming down and would be replaced immediately. We are in the business of making people's lives better, not ruining them," he said. Clearwater Environmental Group was one of several demolition companies attending the meeting. The provincial government required the attendance of any company wanting to bid on the demolition of the 15 acre site.

"Everyone knows there is not enough affordable housing. How could you sleep at night after tearing down these homes for an Olympic parking lot? We want no part of this until there is a plan," Cote continued.

I had been wondering for a while why the phrase 'civil society' as mis-used and abused by Sullivan and his cronies (and council staff and journalists who sucked up to this phrase) had such a nasty ring to it.

Then I saw this piece in the New York Times and was reminded of Ralf Dahrendorf and his wonderfully stimulating re-working of Marxist theory - it's not so much money as power that is unfairly and unjustly distributed.

This lead to much innovative re-examining of what constitutes true consultation, participatory planning, and even the title of a recent DTES paper - I believe called 'Not about us without us.'

Truly empowering people breaks the power attached to money and indeed removes the power implicitly assocaited woth money.

Time to re-read "Class and Class Conflict in Civil Society" (1957)

This abstract and summary is quite good

http://fathom.lse.ac.uk/features/122552/

AS you'll seee these ideas are exactly what Fearless, W2 and other groups are achieving in the DTES and why the stale hierachical organizations - Portland Hotel Society as seen two weeks ago - find loose progress and achievment so threatening.

(From the link above:)

Organisations: These would be voluntary associations, and non-governmental or non-profit organisations, social movements, networks and informal groups. These organisations make up the infrastructure of civil society; they are the vehicles and forums for social participation, "voice" processes, the expression of values and preferences, and service provision.

Individuals: Citizens and participants in civil society generally. This would include people's activities in civil society such as membership, volunteering, organising events, or supporting specific causes; people's values, attitudes, preferences and expectations; and people's skills and in terms governance, management and leadership.As an analytic, conceptual term, civil society is very abstract, even somewhat vague, and certainly highly complex, seemingly resistant to any precise measurement. Yet as an operational definition, it refers to the activities, values and other key characteristics of institutions, organisations and individuals located among the market, the state and the family. (end quote)

From the New York Times:

Ralf Dahrendorf, Sociologist, Dies at 80

By WILLIAM GRIMES

Ralf Dahrendorf, a German sociologist whose experiences in Nazi Germany led him to develop a theory of liberalism and human freedom that often went against the grain of German politics in the postwar period, died Wednesday in Cologne. He was 80.

His death was confirmed in a statement from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said, "Europe has lost one of its most important thinkers and intellectuals." The cause was cancer, said his wife, Dr. Christiane Dahrendorf.

Democracy and its problems preoccupied Mr. Dahrendorf for his entire career as a scholar and as a politician in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. As a high school student he had been imprisoned by the Nazis for spreading leaflets opposing the regime, and early in his life he developed a deep suspicion of what he called "closed, encompassing systems."

Mr. Dahrendorf championed liberal pluralism, which he defined as a social system that recognizes divergent interests and aspirations and puts institutions in place that allow them to be expressed.

Democracy is "about organizing conflict and living with conflict," he told an audience at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989.

"The world isn't simple, nor should it be simple," he continued. "It's rich because it's complicated. Let's learn to live with this."

He explored these ideas in "Class and Class Conflict in Civil Society" (1957), which famously proposed the counter-Marxist idea that power, rather than property, defined social class. Later books like "Society and Democracy in Germany" and "Modern Social Conflict" pursued similar themes.

"As a scholar he was always addressing human value problems in democracy, especially freedom, but he was also deeply involved in the civic life of Germany," said Neil J. Smeltser, an emeritus professor of sociology at Berkeley. "He bridged the gap between social theory and social practice as well as anyone I can think of."

Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf was born in Hamburg, where his father, a Social Democratic politician, was arrested and removed from his job by the Nazis in 1933. The family moved to Berlin soon after. Mr. Dahrendorf's father was arrested again in 1944, and a few months later, Ralf was arrested by the Gestapo for anti-Nazi activities and sent to a concentration camp in Poland. He was released as Soviet forces advanced in 1945.

At the University of Hamburg, Mr. Dahrendorf studied philosophy and classics, earning a doctorate in philosophy in 1952. He went on to earn a second doctorate, in sociology, at the London School of Economics, where he studied under Karl Popper. It was Mr. Popper's "Open Society" that provided the answers, he once said, to the great questions of modern industrial society posed by Marx.

After teaching at the universities of Saarbrücken, Tübingen and Konstanz in West Germany, and at Stanford in California, he ran for a seat in the regional Parliament of Baden-Württemberg. In 1969 he was elected to the federal Parliament as a Free Democrat. He was a junior foreign minister in Willy Brandt's first government and in 1970 became a European commissioner.

At a time when liberal democracy was under attack, Mr. Dahrendorf, as both a university professor and a politician, held fast to the principles of pluralism and personal freedom. His convictions were Social Democratic with a libertarian spin.

He favored laws and policies that encouraged personal freedom, a sense of citizenship and a broadening of social, economic and political opportunities. Germany's problems, he argued, stemmed from a belief in absolute answers and in the yearning for an all-powerful leader to put them into effect.

In 1974 he was invited to become director of the London School of Economics, a post he held for the next decade. He later wrote a history of the school.

He returned to Germany to become chairman of the social sciences department at Konstanz University, but in 1987 he accepted the position of warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford. He became a British citizen in 1988 and was made a life peer under the name Lord Dahrendorf of Clare Market in the City of Westminster in 1993.

In addition to Dr. Dahrendorf, his third wife, he is survived by three daughters, Nicola, Alexandra and Daphne, and one grandchild.

Career Development Conference 2009 - Working Local ~ Shaping Global, March 3rd and 4th, 2009

Greetings if you have arrived here fresh from the CDC conference presentation this morning.

Thanks for all the input, encouragement and support.

Comments, links and ideas can be posted below using the (duh!) "Comments" section

Should this post be removed from the front page on future visits, use the search function to click on 'Employment Counselling' and you'll find it.

We could use this post a resource for ideas on changing the language of our business - several people asked afterwards how they could help with this - I think its one word and one form, brochure, manual at a time

And also use this post to assemble artists resources.

I provide images and notes with this proviso. Seeing and reading is not the same as attending and experiencing. A little like reading the menu, not eating the meal. So with a requisite pinch of salt.........

For an PDF file of the presentation 'That Shiny Red Bicycle - longing, desire and reward in work' click Shiny and Red.pdf

For an rtf file of notes to accompany the images click shinyrednotes.rtf

The url for the 'I like boxes' awfulness on You Tube is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVMi-8KKSpI

Julie Fowlis and her Gaelic version of Blackbird and much more is available here:

http://www.myspace.com/juliefowlis

There might also be an htm version of the presentation coming to open in any browser with notes but bl**dy Microsoft is failing to let you save it in anything but a version so called optimized for so called Internet so called Explorer.....

Check back at the weekend for a document with brief notes on each topic, should the htm version not materialize..........

Thanks again

Stephen

PS Excellent new social activism site is http://www.idealist.org/

scjh

From the wonderfully current people at Howe Sound Brewery in Squamish, comes Bailout Bitter.



'A bitter ale for bitter times.' The full spirit of this wondrously timed ironic creation is amplified in this press release from the company.

As long as we have our sense of humour intact we have a chance.


'...with recession-fighting properties...'