Reason for Revolution/R. Mathews
[Dear Reader. This article of Robin Mathews contains extremely important information relevant to all British Columbians concerned about who will own B.C. Hydro and how much individuals will pay for this unique power system. Please pass this on to everyone you can and use the information contained in it to write letters to your local newspaper, etc. Send it to our MLA. Spread the word far and wide before the deed is done and we’re left at the mercy of more U.S. Corporations. Thanks to Robin and http://www.vivelecanada.ca for permission to publish. Ed.]
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http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20060916233655368
Reason for Revolution.
The Seditious Actions of the Gordon Campbell B.C. Government.
By Robin Mathews
“We welcome fascism when we do not openly confront it.”
In British Columbia, the population, today, is in the process of being robbed in one of the largest, dirtiest, fraudulent deals in Canadian history - with very little time to reverse the direction. It is a move to destroy democratic management of an absolutely key B.C. resource, to implant foreign corporate rule raking in billions of dollars, to kidnap and erase resource ownership by British Columbians, and to impoverish them in a move to create what will be - put in simple terms - a fascist relation between private corporate capitalism (heavily foreign, heavily U.S.) and the B.C. government through an inferior and rapacious exploitation of B.C.’s water resources.
At the root of this robbery is Gordon Campbell, his cabinet, and his MLAs. They have lied, have hidden information, have legislated to prevent democratic participation and to keep information completely from British Columbians. They are raping and have raped democratic rights and procedures. They are doing everything they can to shut off the voice and to kill the aspirations of British Columbians for the continuation of a fair, publicly owned, service oriented energy system intrinsic to the health and prosperity of the Province. The Campbell government’s violation of democratic processes is so heinous and their goals so destructive, they may fairly be described as people moving to a fascist structure of B.C. society.
The history - for at least the last five years - has been of resistance from nice public organizations, nice unions, a love-in Legislative Opposition, nice researchers and nice freelance journalists working on the issue, getting nowhere, losing ground each day, and being made to look like grade school dummies by the relentless manipulation and corrupt practice of the Gordon Campbell mob and its corporate puppeteers, Canadian and U.S. A few times people and groups have stalled the political thuggery. But the Campbell juggernaut has pushed past all fair and decent dealing - gaining, not losing, power.
The corrupt deal in B.C. must be stopped soon by whatever means works. British Columbians must use every weapon - including a General Strike and beyond - to stop the thug group around and working intimately with B.C. premier Gordon Campbell to hand the public wealth of B.C. to rapacious, oppressive, private corporations dragging B.C.’s key energy resource into a system largely owned and controlled and mismanaged in the U.S. where the hugest portion of profit will flow.
The mystery is why Gordon Campbell and his cabinet are not dogged, confronted, and forced into public focus every day. Each time they move to pass legislation stripping British Columbians of democratic rights, or to sell out B.C.’s water, the Opposition should stop the legislature from operating. That is the Opposition’s democratic obligation: to focus the attention of British Columbians when government power is destroying the Province and the democratic rights of Canadians. The Opposition MLAs should block debate and the passage of all legislation. The rotten press and media of B.C would be forced to tell the reason for the opposition’s obduracy, thereby exposing the lying and secrecy of the Campbell government. That is what democratic opposition is about.
Unions should refuse to work, should stop the economy - a democratic weapon available to them. In France the workers did just that recently. French government passed legislation to begin the destruction of French unions. With students and other supporters, the French unions took to the streets and closed institutions until the French government withdrew the legislation completely. That is a recent example of democracy in one of its finest hours.
What is the core of the theft in B.C.?
Having promised not to privatize B.C. Hydro, the most valuable water generating electric system in North America, Gordon Campbell is destroying it.
One. By his 2002 B.C. Energy Plan B.C. Hydro is prevented permanently from developing further electrical generation and is being forced to buy from private generators.
Two. Campbell is burying B.C. Hydro in billions of dollars of debt through advance energy purchase agreements with those private corporations.
Three. Campbell has opened all B.C.’s hundreds of rivers to virtual gift-takeovers by a network of ugly, often foreign, often U.S. corporations.
Four. He has passed legislation - Bill 30 - which prevents all B.C. Municipalities from having any power over zoning of electrical generating facilities erected by private (many foreign) corporations on B.C. rivers. In effect, he has strangled the democratic rights of B.C. Municipalities. .
Five. Campbell has forced B.C. Hydro to out-source a third of its staff to Accenture, a highly dubious Bermuda-based operation. All metering, billing, and financial services of B.C. Hydro have been handed to Accenture by the B.C. government. Accenture came into being from its original life as Arthur Anderson Consulting which was so implicated in the Enron scandal it was virtually destroyed and had to disappear. Its reappearance is as Accenture. It is now a major “partner” in the B.C. water generated energy system.
The government agreement with Accenture is kept secret from the voters of British Columbia, kept so by legislation, denying British Columbians their democratic rights.
Six. Campbell forced a second split in B.C. Hydro to create the B.C. Transmission Corporation. Its purpose is to make B.C. Hydro accessible to all (private) producers so it can become an instrument (of the often U.S. “private” owners of B.C. rivers) to ship electricity to the U.S. at inflated prices - which will become the prices British Columbians pay.
Seven. Unknown to most British Columbians, B.C. Hydro - instead of increasing its electrical generating capacity - is paying out well over $400 million per year to purchase from the burgeoning private operators. That is a totally unnecessary situation.
Eight. Those private operators are The Independent Power Producers of B.C., many neither independent nor “of B.C.”. Unrestrained, they will make multi billions selling to U.S. buyers in a system that will force up nearly all living costs for British Columbians
Nine. To mask his ultimate intention, Campbell has wooed and won some Native groups and some real or “convenient” environmental groups. All of them can have their “participation” and ownership rugs pulled out from under them - precisely as Campbell has undermined B.C. Hydro - whenever it is convenient for the huge U.S. corporations wanting to own B.C. power.
Ten. The Campbell government is doing everything it can to prevent resistance from British Columbians, passing legislation to cut off citizen groups and municipal rights and trying to shut up organizations or institutions it can’t erase - like the Squamish-Lilloet Regional District which is a key obstacle to the complete meltdown of the citizens rights in B.C. that Campbell is determined to destroy.
That is the “what”. Why is it happening?
British Columbia is up against a global development that is ruthless, rapacious, and without conscience. The corporations in North America which are trying to corner all electric generation as a privately owned commodity intend to grab B.C. water resources for themselves. Who are those people? Where does their power come from?
When Dwight Eisenhower left office as U.S. president in 1961, he warned the population of “the military industrial complex” that was growing in power and threatening democratic life and institutions. That is a power that now is made up of George W. Bush, his circle, private U.S. corporations, and a wealth guzzling military which is an intimate part of the structure. Each part feeds the other and each dedicates itself to the illegitimate control of the wealth of the planet - ignoring, circumventing, or destroying democratic institutions. The U.S. has a military budget almost larger than all the other military budgets in the world. That military is used to coerce the rest of the world and - within the U.S. - to provide luxurious contracts to private corporations from the taxes paid by U.S. citizens. War and the repression of other states, and the seizing of foreign wealth is an on-going activity of the U.S. “military industrial complex”.
The U.S. War in Iraq, just for instance, was on the drawing boards long before 9/11 because the re-designing of the Middle East planned by the U.S. military industrial complex requires control of Middle East oil and of Middle Eastern markets. It is not an anomaly, therefore, that the shiny new constitution of “liberated”? Iraq declares that almost all Iraq enterprise can be privatized, can be owned outside the country, and that no Iraq government may impede the export of profits.
The U.S. has moved closer to fascism in recent years than, perhaps, ever before. It engages in illegal wars, violations of international law, the maintenance of secret foreign prisons, illegal military tribunals, widespread spying upon its own people, torture, and wholesale, manufactured falsification of significant world events.
The reactionary government of Stephen Harper is in a love affair with that increasingly fascist U.S. government and - in effect - with the U.S. military industrial complex. The Gordon Campbell B.C. government is a sub-office of that general structure, determined to replace the democratic power of British Columbians with the fascist power of “North American capital”, “of an integrated economy”, “of an unimpeded free trade area”. Whatever phrase is used to describe the goal of the Campbell government, it is - in simple terms - to rob British Columbians of their heritage in a publicly owned resource with public service as its mandate and to destroy democracy in the Province in order to imbed unchallenged and uncriticized private corporate rule in its place.
The history of B.C. Hydro’s dark days can be written briefly. In the premiership of Bill Bennett (judged guilty of insider trading on the Stock Market when premier) the gas section of B.C. Hydro was sold off on condition that it remain a B.C. Company headquartered in B.C. It became (as a private company) B.C. Gas and then Terasen.
A few years ago Gordon Campbell slipped into other legislation the release of Terasen Gas from B.C. ownership. Very soon after it was sold to Richard Kinder, a Texas, ex-Enron executive. (Observe how companies that have been in deep legal trouble in the U.S. provide key figures in the B.C. Hydro story.)
Kinder is said to have made two billion dollars in one year from Terasen. He quickly brought into its ownership the Carlyle Group - famous for arms manufacture and trade, and famous for being owned and/or closely linked to the George Bush circle, Saudi Arabians (the bin Laden family), and some ex-CIA people. The U.S military industrial complex is obviously deep into B.C.’s gas operation and is moving as quickly as it can to take over B.C. water. Its every move is aided and facilitated by the Gordon Campbell government.
In any country concerned to protect its population Campbell’s foul betrayal of trust would be declared sedition. It would be called criminal theft from the B.C. people in favour of private interests (many foreign), inimical to the well-being of Canada and British Columbia. In any such country the people would organize to end the seditious activity, knowing that if they did not succeed by democratic means a call for armed resistance would arise. British Columbians have time - still - to use all democratic means up to and beyond a General Strike to stop the Gordon Campbell thugs. Before there is a call for armed resistance.
Will we seize the opportunity?
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Contact Robin Mathews at: rmathews@sfu.ca