Back to the Centre

As political centrist and traditionally a Liberal voter I have been feeling more and more estranged from my political comfort zone, partially since Gordon Campbell highjacked the BC Liberal brand. 
I can no longer hold my head up when I am asked what party I support at least provincially. 

Provincially at least I am and have been a man without a party and I have been slowly pushed to the closest party to the centre of the political spectrum that exists in BC at this time in history, the centre left BC NDP. 

Provincially at least I have finally made the decision to join the NDP party.

BC needs desperately to return to the centre, centre left, centre right where it has been for most of my life we have to stop the privatizing at any cost, stop the lies, deceit and corruption, get rid of the HST as the people of BC voted for now, stop the free ride for business and sweetheart deals they have enjoyed under the so called BC Liberals, Stop the current shell game with the deficit and BCs budget, no more disastrous P3s, and last but not least the gutting of workers and the unions rights has to stop immediately and allow the much needed worker and union input into the economy, the provincial government must stop their lap dog attitude with Mr. Harper especially on things like the tried and failed concept of making the monetary sinkhole penal system Canada's only growth industry. 

Communism failed with the collapse of Russia and now predictably NeoCon Capitalism and it’s VooDoo economics has suffered the same fate as well, the centre or sweet spot is in the centre of the two extremes and it is time for us to get back to a fair, rational system where we can all thrive and prosper, without the crushing decimation of the middle class and the grinding poverty of the poor, a fair living wage for a mans honest labour. 

Is that unreasonable or to much to strive for ?

Wayne Clark

Democracy was never easy

I have been looking at the disturbing pictures and reading the reports about the suppression of the democratic occupy movement and I can assure you that we have seen nothing yet. 

The full power, control  and money has yet to be seen that the super rich 1 percent is undoubtedly prepared to unleash to maintain the status quo, which means keeping the worlds people powerless and enslaved in their miserly quest for the riches of avarice. 

Contrary to popular belief most of the really big money is inherited and that top one percent owns more than the other 99 percent combined, to the point that you are seeing increasing numbers of people moving down the economic ladder. A consumer society needs a large healthy middle class to keep the wheels of commerce moving.  How many cars can a super rich drive or buy, how many cokes  can he drink, it is that large middle class with disposable income that drives the economy, most super rich probably don't even own an American car.

The one percent masters of the universe have had a great con going for the last 30 years consolidating their power and wealth, and if anyone thinks that they will just give up all the power and money they have accumulated just because the 99 percent want a piece of the pie you are wrong, there will be plenty of blood spilled before this is over. 
We have witnessed the fact that  the chosen few certainly don’t mind spilling the 99 percents blood from Vietnam to all the way to Libya, as a matter of fact it is one of their main sources of income, as long as it isn’t them or their children.

General Eisenhower was right the military industrial complex will be the downfall of America, it will fall from within at the hands of the 1 percent. 

The government is controlled by and for these chosen few which means they control the media, military, the police, the courts, just about everybody, it will escalate and without a doubt get bloody before the end. 

The 99 percent will win in the end for the simple fact that the present system is not sustainable, never mind all the other injustices such as, simply not conducive to a just, democratic, egalitarian society. 

Wayne Clark 

Tunnel Vision

Re: The news November the 16/2011

Mr. Banov you might have run for the Marijuana party but from what I see other than the one anomaly about Marijuana, that I actually agree with, you are otherwise without a doubt a big C Conservative. 

Maybe we could go over a couple of your beliefs and see if we can find a few holes in your reasoning. 

Your contention that somehow rightwing capitalism somehow ensures democracy is obviously just plain wrong. Democracy can be an integral part of most political systems other than dictatorships and other such closed systems.

First the government does set a rate for a persons labour it is called the minimum wage and in BC up till May 1/2011 it was $6.00-8.75 an hour for a persons  labour, but lets keep it real and work with the minimum wage as of Nov 1/2011 $9.50 an hour is what our government deems to be a fair wage for an hours labour now, lets see $9.50 x 40 hours $380.00 a week $380.00 x 52 = $19,760 a year for a person working full time. The poverty level for a couple and two children in BC is $35,471.00 so a person working full time will make just over 1/2 the poverty level for his labour and his family, you obviously see no problem with that. 

Well not to worry we will leave it up to the corporations to give workers a fair living wage, lets take a big multibillion dollar company like Nike for instance, they went to Taiwan to manufacture their $100.00 plus shoes and the workers received $2.50 a day for their labour thats fair isn’t it, Oh maybe not, as a few years later they moved their business lock stock and barrel to Vietnam where they could not only pay $1.00 a day for 14-16 hour days, not only that but they didn’t have to worry about those pesky labour unions as they are illegal in Vietnam. As of July 2011 Nike stated that 2/3 of it’s factories producing Converse products still do not meet even the companies standards for worker treatment. 

It has been reported that Michael Jordan was paid more to endorse Nike than all the people that made them.

How low can you go, I don’t think many Canadians could compete with that level of exploitation on any level, living on 99 cents a day could present a few problems such as starvation or exposure.

I find it interesting that the right only sees in absolutes there is only COMMUNISM OR ULTRA-RIGHT CAPITALISM  they don’t even consider the vast territory between those extremes.

It would seem that capitalism isn’t much more sustainable than that other ism, communism was, it is just taking a little longer to collapse under it’s own weight and unjust excesses.

Wayne Clark

NeoCon mouthpiece

Re: Occupy Vancouver just another squat. The News Nov 9/2011

Mr. Fletcher has to take a little credit if people are seriously disenchanted with capitalism, with his unflinching support for ultra-rightwing capitalism, the rich corporations and the 
rich 1 percent that derives most of the wealth and benefits from unrestrained capitalism. 

Mr. Fletcher and the chosen few have shown nothing but contempt and disrespect for the 99 percent of the workers of the world that actually do the work and produce the products of the global economy. 

They use derogatory insults designed to pacify, demoralize and marginalize honest workers saving their most contemptible insults and lies for union workers and real democracy, heaping words like anarchism, pathetic self-serving, financially illiterate, lazy, unambitious even suggesting at times that people like firemen and paramedics are less than real men. 

Mr. Fletcher slavishly supports any and all taxes that increased taxes on workers and decreased them on business and the wealthy 1 percent such as HST calling anyone who dares to disagree with his opinion financially illiterate, ignorant.

It is the Tom Fletchers of the world that think sending 300 high paying jobs to Ontario or any other meaningful employment offshore to the country with the lowest wages to make businesses more efficient ( which means profitable) not only makes sense but actually is a good idea economically.

Mr. Fletcher and the one percent will not be happy until the whole world is a third world country with the chosen few 1 percent with 90 percent of the wealth and everyone else a giant slave pool that they can exploit at their leisure.

You can squeal all you want but the writing is on the wall Mr. Fletcher, the worm has turned, the pendulum has gone as far right as it can and now it has began to swing back to the centre and with it will come a revitalized middle class and a little justice for the workers of this world, and if you want to call this reality another of your favourite slurs, that old boogyman socialism feel free because no reasonable person listens to your NeoCon dogma anyway.


It is Mr. Fletcher and his NeoCon co-conspiraters that have brought the world to it's knees and they still insist that their VooDoo economics is the answer to all the worlds monetary problems, we just have to give the one percent yet more money and everything will somehow be all right.

I would say that for all the real news you produce your seat in the legislature is nothing more than a SQUAT. 

Wayne Clark

Going the wrong way

The more things change the more they stay the same. 

Canadians were the people in North America who were fine with taxation without representation in 1776 and now it seems many Canadians do not even believe in or practice democracy. First barely 50 percent even bother to vote in Federal and provincial elections and now according to the polls many do not support people exercising their democratic right to peaceful protests such as the occupy movement. Apparently protesting not only upsets them but also inconvenience them and somehow embarrasses or threatens their peace of mind and way of life. 

Canadians have allowed archaic Federal and Provincial electoral systems which allow huge majority governments with a minority of voters support. 

I find it hypocritical that the Canadian people as well as our government applauded Egypt and other countries for protesting for freedom and democracy but when Canadians practice democracy somehow it is stupid and frivolous and even illegal such as the G20 and all the occupy demonstrations taking place in Canada and all over the world. 

It seems if things keep going in the same direction that very soon if Canadians want to live in a democracy they will have to move to Egypt.

Well at least we will have lots of new prisons to incarcerate all these malcontents thanks to Da Fuhrer and his draconian vision of Canada. 


Here is an added caution to the people that are suggesting the government use Canadian troops to disperse these protests, with the new rules anyone arrested by the military would be considered a terrorist, with all the loss of rights that comes with that particular designation. 

Wayne Clark

Failed Ideology

What the Occupy movement is about is an awakening to the fact that we are now living in a pure unrestrained Capitalist system where the 99 percent of the people or labour has no power, lobby or input into the system. 

Big money the one percent has the money therefore the lobbyists and ultimately control over the politicians. The crucial missing ingredient that has made capitalism work as well as making the system sustainable, unions has been crushed so labour has literally no voice 

( 7 percent in America all the way from 36 percent), no lobby, no value. 

If you put a graph of the decline of unions and the decline of the middle class together you would see they match perfectly.

Worker productivity has increased 400 percent since 1950 and prior to the 1980s productivity gains and workers wages moved in tandem. 

Since the 80s the only wage increases workers have received came from working longer hours until Americans now work 137 hours more than Japanese workers 260 hours more than British workers and 499 more than the French.

One of the main reasons why the recession drags on is that the vast bulk of workers do not have the disposable income or purchasing power to drive our economy, I believe 70 percent of Americas economy is generated internally and I believe BCs is closer to 80 percent. Every person who wants to work should be able to have meaningful employment and to do that everyone should work less, and every job should pay at a minimum the poverty level.

If Capitalism can no longer put fair value on honest labour it has obviously outlived it’s usefulness. 

For you Canadians that believe that this issue has nothing to do with Canada, the reality is the income inequity gap is growing faster in Canada than in the U.S.A., and Canada had the forth biggest increase in the equity gap among it's peers. 

We have to put labour back in the equation, love them or hate them unions are a crucial component in making Capitalism palatable to the 99 percent, we need union worker representatives on all company and corporations boards of directors to address workers concerns and issues such as wages, hours of work, holidays, benefits, health benefits, sending jobs offshore, anything that affects workers and their families livelihood.

After all isn’t that is what a society is all about families, raising children providing a good nurturing environment, food a roof over their head, proper schooling right up to university, good health care and a pension and social safety net to take care of the old or sick, 

or is it just about how super rich we can possibly make a chosen few. 

The apologists talk about the rich being rich because they are smarter, take more risks, work harder are more inventive, but the reality is not near so noble, it is mostly because daddy was rich because he was a bootlegger or some other such lucrative enterprise, and their descendants either squander that inheritance or build on it, it has very little to do with being smarter or better than other people, it is about money and connections. 

I think the chances that someone would be rich are pretty good if he just happened to inherit $400,000,000 from his father.

American companies now pay more for lobbyist's than they do in taxes.

Money makes money.

Wayne Clark

Stand Against Greed

Isn’t it curious that for the 30 years that the super riches taxes plummeted from 91 percent to 36 percent there was no talk about class warfare, but now that because of a national budgetary crisis at least partly attributable to the fact that the rich now pay less taxes than the rest of Americans, CLASS WARFARE is the latest right wing buzzwords. The right is great at coming up with these gut grabbing buzzwords such as " THE RIGHT TO WORK" or FREEDOM OF CHOISE" they all sound so good, even right but the reality is anything but. 
It was even suggested to me once that if we had real freedom there would be
A RIGHT TO DISCRIMINATE.


The rich paid many hundreds of millions to lobbyists and politicians of all stripes over the last three decades to achieve this inequity and now because of a national monetary crisis they are still unwilling to step up to the plate and pay their fair share. 

It seems the rich are not all that patriotic and would let the whole country plummet into bankruptcy and depression rather than start to pay their fair share. 
I would say it is time for the rich to give their  head a shake and willingly start acting like a patriotic concerned American citizen that has obviously done a lot better than most other American citizens thanks to an economic system that has been slowly turned even more to the super wealthy’s economic advantage. 

This is an undeniable fact that the gape between the rich and the rest of America grows farther apart every day, did the rich really believe that know one would notice or the day of reckoning would never come. 

America has become what is known to the rest of the world as a third world country with all the inequities that third world countries are known for, other than the fact that it still has a militarily that can incinerate the world 2 1/2 times over, but in the end even that will inevitably become just one more casualty of this crippling monetary crisis, as the military requires gratuitous gobs of money to carry on as well, the American dream is long gone. 

Time for the rich in America as well as Canada to step up to the plate and make the dream a reality once again.


Unfortunately this is not likely to happen as most of the supper rich are misers and will never willingly give one inch. It will take some strong politician like Franklin D. Roosevelt to force them to carry their share of the load or burden.
Wayne Clark