If you are like me, you are tired of seeing greedy right-wing companies and governments destroy the things we value in Canada and world – our once pristine environment, ‘real’ free trade not corporate-controlled trade, scientific research, and most important, our democracy.
Unfortunately, it is now obvious that the tactics we’ve been using are not strong enough to stop these powerful right-wing forces. We win a battle here and there – say against fracking or in support of LGBTQ rights – but year after year, we keep losing the war.
The right wing has too much money and too much power. And if they are not stopped, who is to say they’re not going to destroy much of the planet? That’s the path they’re on.
WE'D LIKE YOUR FEEDBACK - SEE BELOW
There is a huge open space internationally – and in Canada - waiting for the right project to come along and capture people’s imagination.
Starting in February, groups working in several countries are going to start building something the right wing does not have – a massive, global, loosely-knit network of networks, organizations and people who are determined to engage in large-scale campaigns to take back what the right has “stolen” from the rest of us.
We in the progressive and liberal communities can build a vehicle that will be larger and more powerful than any corporation or government. Imagine the equivalent of an Occupy movement that has staying power!
Local campaigns are still needed that fight for issues such as the protection of environmental resources, a living wage for all, and well-funded health care. Existing groups already working on their own campaigns will continue to do so.
The ‘One Big World Campaign’, the project’s name for now, will focus on huge, usually trans-national issues that nevertheless affect us locally – for instance, perhaps participants will want to build a massive international campaign to stop specific corporations from using non-renewable resources when cheaper, non-polluting renewables are easily available. This is a huge issue in just about every country in the world.
The first task is to develop the giant co-operative network. We will contact the main international groups already involved in campaigning and have them join us. As it takes shape, those taking part will come up with an open and democratic operational structure.
Later, campaign ideas will be discussed. We will need people to contribute in many ways, including from sending protest emails, telephoning corporations and governments, occasionally taking part in protests, boycotting the products of the most destructive corporations, etc.
Yes, this is an ambitious project but, with concerned people working together, we can do it. We must do it.
Imagine the 10-million people campaign!
Please send us your comments to fillmore0274@rogers.com.
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While I wish you well with this, I can't help but wonder if it will be any more effective than the 'one big campaign' - which SHOULD HAVE gone viral and added hundreds of thousands in numbers - yet, for some unknown reason, it didn't. Very disapointing!
ReplyDeleteAnything to do with NSA etc.?
DeleteHi cheena1, if you'd like to send your email to me, fillmore0274@rogers.com, I can explain why we were unable to continue with our project in Canada alone. - Nick
DeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteI'm in the US. I am not anonymous but rather have tried to be out in the open and as vocal as possible. I tried to build a loose network across the States that would initiate protests in sync with each other, have them then take videos and video interviewing participants,our liberal progressive talking points on the signs at the protests, etc. They were to then mail them into my headquarters where I would have on staff a copy writer, editor and someone to send the finished "Story/Video" of each event back to the leader in each state. Then that State Leader would be responsible for sending out as many copies of it as possible to all local news stations, TV Talk Shows, Newspapers, etc. I would include the major Cable Network Shows such as CNN, MSNBC, etc. TV coverage reaches the most people out of all mediums-and that includes the internet! That's why the US Fox New Network was bought and created by a right wing wealthy individual. He knew that anything on the news is worth a hundred commercials as it gives the story line "credibility". I learned that from my own experience as being my own in-house publicist for my own small businesses! He created a "fake news channel" that funnel right wing propaganda out to the masses in the US.
I had two big problems. First of all, I was willing to hire the personal part time to do the work-but I am far from having the finances and the means of being powerful enough to reach enough people to get the network started. I did try!
More importantly, I study behavior and the brain and I know that conservatives have a slightly different brain in two areas (this is documented in fMRI studies that initiated at the University of London in England-I can provide for you published material in well know magazines and Medical Journals). To jump to the point, these differences in the brain make the right wing much more forceful, they lack the empathy for others, and they will do whatever it takes to get what they want.
On the other hand, liberals are more logical-but most lack the "fire" in them to unite and fight back. I do believe that is why we have lost so much ground. If two people come up to confront each other and one who is willing to do anything to get their way and are the loudest and most forceful will usually prevail.
This is only logical. "The squeaky wheel gets oiled"...and those willing to cheat have a greater advantage over those that don't cheat.
This will be your biggest obstacles in your endeavors. I have come up against liberal apathy so many times.It is the one downfall to the structure of most of the brains in the liberal movement. There are anomalies, of which I am one-I will fight till I drop...not so for most liberals.
I agreed with your article completely. The answer I have for why we did not succeed is this liberal apathy. I'm sure there is a work-around for it, but it would take something novel to get the fire under the left wing. If you can do that, you will succeed in your goal.
If you need a strong, progressive liberal in the US, who is feisty and won't take "no" for an answer-that would be me. So, I'm here if you need such a liberal in your endeavors. Your idea is so similar to what I was thinking-but on a national scale. Beware the liberal apathy gene (actually a normal sized amygdala in the brain is the root of that quality). Either way, I am right here and got your thoughts-totally!
Best and always,
Gigi Jacobs
Los Angeles, CA
Nick, you know I'm with you on this, and would love to find a way to contribute some of my creative efforts to spreading the word.
ReplyDeleteNick, with reference to Adrienne Arsenault and Canada's "non-whistleblowing culture", were you by any chance able to save a copy of the "....citizen feedback at the bottom of the page....? I located the entire 55-minute show on the CBC website in which this clip of Adrienne Arsenault appears, but not the "citizen feedback at the bottom of the page". Personally I think what Adrienne Arsenault said about it being "brutally difficult" to "break" a story in Canada is connected NOT with Canadians being "unwilling to give an opinion" - or some such - but with Canadians living in fear of having their opinions used against them by their bosses at work, or by the authorities, as "excuses" to fire them from their jobs or to brand them as "dissidents, meaning that they are terrorism suspects". The other dimension to this is fear of even more funding cuts to the CBC by the Harper government if any CBC reporter "crosses the line" by reporting something that the government might perceive as "politically incorrect" - such as the corruption directed at me personally by SNC-Lavalin Inc. and reported in my November 2013 article in the "South Asia Mail". See my webpage at www.exposethismuck.com/SAMART1.htm - where you will find the full article complete with embedded links to all the supporting documents, and a link to my article where it appears on the "South Asia Mail" website. At the same time, Prime Minister said publicly back in 2005 : "Corruption is not a Canadian value". Thus neither he nor anyone else can say that some types of corruption in business by SNC-Lavalin Inc. somehow "qualify" for being covered up and ignored, while other corruption - such as the disgusting exhibition by SNC-Lavalin Inc. over the past 2 years of how much money they were able to find in order to pay bribes in Libya, (example: a payment of $160 million to Saadi Gadhafi) , gets reported in full. JUST WHAT KIND OF DOUBLE STANDARD IS THIS, AND WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ENFORCING IT? Nick, what do you think about this?
ReplyDeleteErratum: "...Prime Minister said publicly back in 2005 ...." SHOULD READ "...Prime Minister Stephen Harper said publicly back in 2005...."
DeleteAs an individual senior who tries to keep myself informed of what is happening out there via my laptop, I am all for spreading information via the Internet. However, I find lately that some of my friends are worried about government spying and refuse to say anything negative. I say bring it on! I'll be a "whistleblower" for free!
ReplyDeleteI'd no idea that this "One Big Campaign" has already been going on for nearly 2 years, until I did some research into Nick Fillmore's work this morning. Among other things, I found the following:-
ReplyDeletehttp://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/journalist-launches-campaign-to-pressure-canadas-progressive-groups-to-unite-to-defeat-harper/
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https://www.facebook.com/CampaignToBuildOneBigCampaign
As for government "spies" - and the like - personally I couldn't give a damn who they are or what their positions are. CSIS, RCMP, Police, lawyers, judges, big business leaders and all the rest of them. As far as I’m concerned, they will have to get used to the idea that the present way of doing things in Canada simply isn't working – except for the small number of business leaders, lawyers etc. who are attempting to control everybody else. Currently it involves glorifying standard procedures and little rules of protocol, rules, regulations, office politics and little office and social cliques, warped Court judgements, and ill-informed but popular social prejudices. At the same time it often ignores facts and cause-and-effect relationships, along with the supporting documentation, when these are seen as "inconvenient". Thus, for example, it sets a "double standard" whereby some types of corruption in business can be reported in full, while other types of corruption in business somehow "qualify" for being covered up and ignored in order to destroy the person at whom the said corruption has been directed. Example: the bribery and improper payments by SNC-Lavalin Inc. to promote their Libyan business, which has been continually in the news reports over the past 2 years. In turn, an example of this was the $160 million bribe that they paid to Saadi Gadhafi. Meanwhile everybody I’ve approached so far in the mainstream Canadian media has either ignored or refused to even ask a question about the corruption directed at me personally over the past 31 years, reported on my webpage at www.exposethismuck.com/SAMART1.htm and on my main website at www.exposethismuck.com. Also, as far as I can see, nobody wants to deal properly with Canada’s unemployment and under-employment problem properly. Too many business leaders, lawyers, politicians etc. want to keep this mess going in the time- honoured manner, just so that they can sustain their ability to procure cheap labour and cheapen people and more particularly foreign-trained professional engineers such as myself. This in my view would explain why nobody but myself ever seems to question the use or application of terms like “dropped out of the labour force” and “given up looking for work” when discussing people out of work. Too many people in high places find those terms useful, so they want to continue entrenching their use - for all the wrong reasons. See also my website at www.unempgeninfo.com Robert T. Chisholm – Associate Member, O.S.P.E.
The entire agenda has/is being set by-pass our legal system, that is why many of the gutted laws were bundled in our budgets. Gutting these laws and policies were done to set a lowered base of reduced/lost public services.health care, E.I., Election laws, etc. This was done to undermine our existing legal system so the pending trade agreements can be implemented over any legal objections made to our Supreme Court based on our Constitution. The one thing no media would deal with was the absolute right of the 'investor-state dispute settlement' mechanism agreed to in these trade deals. Any law or regulation foreign investors can pick to dispute, automatically is transferred to a 3 men corporate tribunal for determination, which is final. And the only payee targeted, are we the taxpayers--see NAFTA --to date taxpayers are on the hook for 2 billion dollars in outstanding lawsuits, most dealing with legal environmental and domestic economic growth incentives passed by our Legislators. The bottom line is that whatever the US changed to get set the stage for these trade deals all other signers had to do the same. That would be us and all done in secrecy. Harper is quoted as saying 'you won't recognize Canada when I get done--. I doubt if any Canadian, even in Alberta will admit they voted for the conservatives after the (blank) hits the fan.
ReplyDeleteAs for Flaherty, he was, I heard a nice man, but to secretly give interest free money (114 billion dollars) to bailout our (too big to fail banks) is intolerable. Our banks didn't have to merge, they simply went global and starting playing with the fraudsters. It is telling that the one type of creditor guaranteed to be paid first are hedge funds and they are also the groups that are guessed to account for approximately 165 trillion dollars in outstanding contracts. Lets see, when the next bankster recession comes (note I said when) the US has legislated a 'safe harbor' provision, the EU has tested their 'bail-in' provision (on Cyprus--worked perfectly--oh must not forget Greece) as for Canada, well we got ours too, in the 2013 Budget (page 145) as a 'bail-in' which will take depositor assets in exchange for the failing banks bonds. I have written CBC News etc., to please discuss these issues for the past year, the silence has been deafening. Timidity has become our forte. It truly is frustrating to be almost begging to hear anyone sound a whimper of concern, only to be solicited for a donation to save our one and only publicly funded news station that has gone from promising the 'truth' behind the headlines, to telling you, our stories with pictures of hugs and hockey in the background. Infuriating, which is how many Canadians are now commenting on their blog. P.S. The only person to come right out and try to discuss our Canadian bank bailout was none other than Jim Stanford of the Unifor (union).
ReplyDelete