test blog 5

Last night Allan and I were talking about - what else? - the election, noticing the differences between Canada's parliamentary system and the US's republic system. One difference is immediately obvious to us during this campaign season. Since Canadians vote for a party, not a person, the emphasis of the campaign is so much more on issues , and so much less on personality. I understand that Party Leaders shape the party, that's unavoidable. But since Martin, Harper, Layton and Duceppe are all Party Leaders, vying for which party will form the government and which will sit in opposition, as opposed to who will be the head of state, the focus is not on the men themselves. Or, so much less, that to us newcomers it looks like not at all. You cannot imagine how refreshing that is. Some of you may not realize the extent to which "the character issue" - as the mainstream media calls it - dominates American politics. In keeping with everything else in American culture, it...

I am now the proud owner of an Ontario driver's license. We applied for them 10 days ago and got our temporary cards; the permanent licenses were in yesterday's mail. Of all the pieces of official beaureaucracy I've obtained, this most clearly says to me that I live here now. I'm incredibly proud of my Permanent Resident card, as it's the culmination of all our work and planning. And I love my Ontario Health card, because I'm so appreciative of what it represents, although I haven't used it yet. But both those are brand new - they don't replace anything I had in the US. They're just these new things I carry around in my wallet. But I had a New York State driver's license since I was 16 years old. And I don't have one anymore! I have one from Ontario.

Do you like the new ribbon? I found it through wmtc pal Crabletta . Scroll down for more impeachable goodness. Go here to join the coalition and get your own ribbon. I don't know if it will help, but I know it can't hurt.

Good news from the south. Chile has elected Michelle Bachelet as President. Bachelet is a socialist, a former political prisoner, a pediatrician, and a former defense minister under Chile's post-Pinochet government. She is also the country's first female leader. Indeed, she is only the third democratically elected female leader in all of Latin America, and the first who did not come into power through her husband. Exciting things are happening in the region. Victor Chavez is famously leading a popular revolution in Venezuela; Evo Morales is leading one in Bolivia. I find Morales's election absolutely stunning. Morales is a coca farmer, a lifelong activist, the leader of Bolivia's Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party - and Bolivia's first indigenous president. Indigenous people comprise 65% of Bolivia's population, but none have even come close to becoming president before. A native person elected president of a Latin American country! That is truly something....

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will conti...

My thoughts on cynicism were prompted by something I read yesterday. A smart man named Howard Roberts has written a plan for a US-out-of-Iraq exit strategy . He's put a lot of thought into his Seven Point Plan, and it deserves our attention. For peace activists, an outline like this is useful for countering any number of pro-occupation arguments, especially the "now that we're there we have to stay to keep the peace" variety. In the larger sense, Roberts's work may be the framework the world needs to get the US out of Iraq. The cynicism I'm referring to was in comments - someone calling Mr Roberts naive. He doesn't sound naive to me. To listen to the critics, you would think nothing had ever changed the in the world - that no war had ever ended, that no power was ever deposed, that no people ever won their autonomy and self-determination. I urge other supporters of peace to circulate the Seven Point Plan . One needn't agree with every comma and period...

Whenever people organize for change, there's no shortage of people to tell them they won't succeed. The most common and easiest response to people's movements is cynicism. The cynic sits apart, scoffing at the naivete of the organizers, citing all the many reasons why change can't happen, won't happen. Chances are, the organizers know the odds against them. But it's easier to scoff and sneer than it is to do the hard work of changing the world. The cynical pose also protects against the pain of disappointment, and the appearance of having backed a loser. When there is a setback, the cynic can say, "I knew it wouldn't work". The facts they spout are often correct. Everything they say may be true. And so... what? Do nothing? Lay down? Let them walk over us without even putting up a fight? This is the real problem with such entrenched cynicism: in terms of action, it's the exact same thing as apathy. It acquiesces. It allows. When I hear critics l...