MEDIA_ACTIVIST JAY BAKER

Monday, March 1, 2010

Overthrowing the Underclass

As you may know, not long ago I was living in Canada, the second-largest country in the world. But long before I moved to Canada from Britain, the UK had sent its colonialism there, where it was embraced; cherished. It was with angst that I arrived there, then - carrying the same angst that all Anglos do when recent history reminds us of the atrocities of our ancestors. But it's true that the colonialism was taken to heart - not overseas, but at home; internally. And yet this is rarely realised.

Often largely due to Canada's favourite historical figure, groundbreaking socialist Tommy Douglas, the nation's international image seems to have become one of a "classless" and/or socialist society while defining its identity by simply reinforcing its differences from its notorious neighbours to the south. This all came about while millions of Canadians grew up in fear of conflict between the United States itself and the Soviet Union, with terrifying Cold War visions of nuclear missiles flying back and forth overhead. The world, in turn, had nothing but affection for Canada.

It was in the United States that I lived briefly following my engagement to a nurse there who, funnily enough, I met in Toronto, Ontario. The accents and highways and suburban sprawl were similar, but these were just superficialities, with a gulf separating Canadian and American fundamental ideals.

However, the trip that cemented my own affection for the country of Canada came after that, when I was earning almost $100,000 a year, and paid for myself and my girlfriend at the time to go on vacation in Vancouver, British Columbia. I'd never seen such an amazing place: in a single day, you can go from walking a suspension bridge over the Capilano, amongst the rainforests, along snow-covered mountains, on a ferry, across sandy beaches, to walking between skyscrapers en route to bustling cafes - making the city one of the most desirable destinations in the world for those who can afford it. Of course, this comes at a cost; you can't have rich without poor.

But I wanted to go there again; my girlfriend didn't. It was representative of the growing differences between us as she attended university and I craved other outlets beyond Britain. After an amicable parting, I went back again, and my life was changed, meeting the Ontarian woman who would become my wife.

When you arrive in Southern Ontario, you find yourself in the most Anglocised area of the entire country, with town names like London, Windsor, and Scarborough. In Brantford, you may catch a glimpse into the secret shame of the country by discovering the appalling living conditions of the Six Nations people there, on the Grand River. It was an eye-opener for me, for sure. To find somewhere more relatable, this Sheffield lad headed to the steel city of Hamilton, only to find that it, too, had seen its workers laid-off and the industrial jobs few and far between. If you travel along Highway 6, you'll see many weird and wonderful sights, from giant model dinosaurs to fences made from bicycles to abandoned tractors and other things seemingly sprung from a Tim Burton film. My then-wife vowed to make a photographic exhibition project about it - it really does have to be seen to be believed.

But that's not the only part of the country that's like something from Bizarro World; I've said before that all those smiles and reassurances of socialism conceal something sinister, and the unease I felt on Highway 6 was warranted. Moving to Canada is fine if you have money - and without a visa, mine had soon run out. My wife and I would soon separate, and only hours later it was further up Highway 6, in Guelph, that my dear close personal friend Lenna Titizian and I would see Naomi Klein speak about Canada's worrying trends, at a New Democratic Party rally, and have her sign her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (the kind of capitalism that was, in fact, taking over Canada, too). I had worked with Klein's colleagues in Toronto, such as those from Ontario's Coalition for Social Justice.

And such movements were needed. Canada, too, was becoming post-industrial, thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement actually opening the gates for a flow of labour trickling down all the way to the sweatshops of Mexico. This was something I actively opposed whilst living in the city of Kitchener, in the region of Waterloo. It was there I conceived SilenceBreaker Media - though (fortunately) its limited success there allowed it to grow into something much more innovative and feasibly sustainable back in Britain. Despite claims to the contrary, I held several workshops, events, and successfully won funding for the proposed company in Kitchener, in spite of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minority yet militant right-wing government slashing funding for the creative industries, too. It was ol' Steve that offered a lame apology to the Natives after it emerged there had been genocide committed against them on Canadian soil via "residential schools" throughout most of the 20th century.

Funnily enough, while Harper's government were tightening belts and cutting arts funding, they were able to find money for the Winter Olympics, sweeping the disgusting mistreatment of native people under the rug, just as Australia did when they too played host to the International Olympic Committee (while China used the Olympics to mask its attack on civil liberties).

I flew back to the Old World by plane with an empty seat beside me, having been asked by airline staff why my traveling partner - my wife - wasn't with me as booked. I didn't know the reason, and still don't know to this day. We'd been put through a lot of pressure by people determined to see us fail: bitter obsessives who stuck the knife in my back as soon as I turned around to leave Britain for a while (as I was no longer a meal-ticket for many, they influenced a shut-down of my UK company in order to seize its assets). We were to fly back there together, to develop collaboration on a documentary I'd been asked to make, titled Overthrowing the Underclass, and begin a reconciliation; a reconciliation inexplicably abandoned by my wife, and a collaboration killed.

But it was on that long flight that I also had time to reflect on my time there, in a country where its natives - be they First Nations or otherwise - are each systematically overthrown by avarice and exploitation, chewed up and spat out to make way for the next economic policy in the interests of the elite few represented by Stephen Harper.

I had discovered Canada as another kind of pioneer, finding an uglier layer beneath the progressive front: a Canada of unemployment, poverty, prejudice, and of peoples in need of unity to fight for the land they all share.

What happened next? Well, Kitchener was finding itself the destination dumping ground for homeless people being sent there to cleanse neighbouring up-market Waterloo, a city which - like Canada as a whole - was continuing its crucial branding, in its own case as "Top Intelligent Community" and home of the Blackberry loved by right-wingers. Meanwhile, the wife I was sadly divorcing thrived on that prestige - running high-brow amateur events, sending a clear message to the government that they apparently didn't require funding, while calling herself "working class," daughter of a school principal who grew up in one of the largest domestic houses I have ever been in. My current partner, who was born and bred in the Soviet Union, the first largest country in the world, shakes her head at these pampered people supporting separatism and internal issues when there are "bigger, more important problems" they should be united on.

Obviously, the Canadians don't truly know the class system. But at this rate, they will. Sadly, they will know it all too well. Their country isn't quite what they like to think it is.

As John Lennon sang, "You think you're so clever and classless and free, but you're still f*cking peasants as far as I can see."

- Jay Baker; South Yorkshire, England

Jay Baker's brand-new book is Pissing in the Mainstream. You can read a compilation of his best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in the book Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist, available here.

Labels: Canada, intellectual capitalism, Naomi Klein, Olympics, Soviet Union, Stephen Harper

Monday, October 13, 2008

Crapping on the Canadian Flag

White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Pansexual Male WLTM Canadian to shack up with me and sponsor me so I can get my visa faster. Clean. Tidy. Vegan. Uncut. D&D-free. No money left, but have good SOH.

I can't even get a visa let alone vote, but I'm still excited for Canada's 40th federal election that's already upon us. 40th! Wow. It doesn't sound like many, but you have to consider that it feels like they've had about twenty of those things in the last few years alone. Heck, Canadians really love elections, eh? It's probably because they get to show off to their drunken, rowdy next-door neighbours that they can actually do one properly - y'know, the kind where the one who actually wins ends up in power.

The Canadians recently participated in a much-publicized Greatest Canadian vote via CBC. They chose as the Greatest Canadian of all-time none other than Tommy Douglas, the "Father of Medicare" and staunch socialist who spearheaded the New Democratic Party. 1.2 million votes were cast. This is a staggering amount, considering that - as the rest of the world will tell you - the majority of the remaining population probably live in mountain shacks or something, surrounded by snow with no access to media. So, with all that in mind, you'd think it's a given that Canadians today would put the NDP into power by a landslide.

Nope.

Across the border, in the United States, they like to show off their "democracy" by offering two Presidential candidates to choose from. That's right: two - hey, it's one more than Cuba! Two.

You'd think it was the same in Canada, though, because it's Liberal/Tory, Same Old Story, even though there are several parties to choose from - from such characters as the Christian Heritage Party, to the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party, to the Bloc Quebecois, to the Marijuana Party (wow, that sounds like a real party to me!) Sadly, though, when the Conservatives mess up, the people put the Liberals in power; then, the Liberals get caught doing dirty tricks, so they put the Conservatives in for a while - and then the Tories start wrecking the country.

Personally, given the nature of the House of Commons in Canada, and the popular sport of ice hockey, if they're going to play with two parties only, I don't know why they don't just put them both into teams, on the ice, and have them smack the crap out of each other; the winning team becomes the government! Why not? They might as well, if you think about it.

So, why aren't the Canadians practicing what they preach? Have they perhaps forgotten that the NDP is Tommy Douglas's party, thanks to a media that shortens their memories as well as their attention spans? In fact, that may be part of the reason too: the NDP don't get much coverage in the press! It makes sense, really, considering the media is for the most part owned by the same gang that needs capitalism - not socialism - perpetuated. And only the Liberal/Tory, Same Old Story will do just that.

With the NDP, you have a party that's all for protecting human beings in the workplace through strong trade unions, in favour of ecosocialist alternatives for the environment, against having Canadian troops doing Anglo-American bidding in the Middle East, totally for the rights of First Nations people, and wants to stop the bloodletting of industry all the way down to Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement. All Canadian values, we're told. Right? Maybe, but the Canadians aren't voting for them - in fact many of them, when they're not voting for one of the two hockey teams there, are voting for the Green Party, that bunch of wishy-washy middle class ethical consumers and capitalists who don't care whether you've got a good job or not, as long as you're buying the more expensive and "environmentally-friendly" light-bulbs. And they're not likely to even win a single seat in the Commons, so, Green-voters, "Green" might sound nice and politically correct, but a vote for them from you and your mates will only increase the chance of a Conservative majority, giving the Tories the green light - no pun intended - to show their own true colours. Scary thought, eh?

So, with all this confusion - this blindness to the only party that actually has any interest in Canadian values at all - we're left back with Liberal/Tory, Same Old Story. But that's a game far more dangerous than hockey, my seal-clubbing friends, because if the Tories get their majority, that'll be their permission to complete their campaign to wreck the entire country.

Remember the good old days, you Canucks? It wasn't so long ago when you had Bush steal another election across the border, and you all had to deal with all these bloody apologetic Americans showing up on your doorstep all looking like some sorry bastard who just left their partner and needed somewhere to stay for a while. Heck, how do you think you got Naomi Klein? Her folks even made that move back in the day, back when Tommy Douglas was leading the NDP. Well, that's all over now, if you vote the wrong way. Because now, if Barack Obama can somehow steal back the votes for his party, and becomes President of the United States while Prime Minister Stephen Harper enjoys a majority in Canada, you will all become the ones looking for somewhere to stay, and you'll be hoping the Americans finally return the favour. Because you can forget about everything you hold dear.

Yep, if Mr Roboto gets full control, he's going to start rampaging across the country, province to province, and wreck it - you know, kind of like that evil robot from RoboCop 2. Maybe that mass majority who didn't vote in CBC's Greatest Canadian poll - being stuck in their log cabins, and all - will play a part in it. But, when you're dealing with a party that makes it harder for refugees to come into the country, wants to send their troops overseas to get killed for no clear reason, thinks it's against God for people to marry if they happen to be of the same gender, cuts $45 million from the arts, pulls from the Kyoto treaty, tries to bribe people, and cut-and-paste speeches from Mike Harris and even the Prime Minister of Australia (yep, you read it right), you can't afford to be as ignorant.

A vote for the Tories is like following the ignorant voters not into log cabins, but instead, an outhouse, which is what might as well replace the voting booth for all those intending to vote Conservative. Because instead of marking a voting card for the Tories, you might as well drop your britches, squat, and take a nice, big fat shit all over the Maple Leaf flag - as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's what a Conservative vote is: bye, bye, Canada - and all the values that your Greatest Canadian had.

I already showed the Canadians what happens when you vote the wrong way - by showing them Blair's Britain in my film Escape from Doncatraz. And they loved it, giving it a standing ovation in their hundreds. I was blown away - they totally got it! What happened there, though, could happen to Canada, too. The Tories are just waiting to do it.

So, what will it be? A wise decision in the voting booth as you do your dirty yet dutiful business? Or a trip to the outhouse? Because if it's the latter, and you thought the United States was shaped like a giant toilet, you'll be surprised to find that, suddenly, it's your country that's full of shit.

It's up to you.

- Jay Baker; Doncaster, England

Labels: Barack Obama, Naomi Klein, NDP, Stephen Harper, Tony Blair

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Another Kick in the Arts: Open Minds, Small Minds, and Unchanging Minds

I just came away from another successful screening of my film, Escape from Doncatraz - this time in my beloved Steel City, at the University of Sheffield, where there was standing room only (okay, I guess the lecture theatre was small). Unlike the Canadians who viewed it a few months ago and laughed, cried, and gave it a standing ovation, the British behaved extremely British indeed and politely applauded instead. As my friend Matt said, "watch for a sudden dart of the eyes downward...it means they're emotionally moved." Ah, the British. Gotta love 'em.

In Escape from Doncatraz, British National Party candidate Marlene Guest claimed Britain could actually sink if it allowed any more immigrants onto the island. Wow, sink? I'm glad I left when I did - I can barely tread water!

Ah, the BNP. As Escape from Doncatraz shows, leader Nick Griffin and his gang are nothing but a group of fascists; dregs leftover from the Ku Klux Klan, Combat 18 and the National Front, dressed in suits instead of jackboots, and getting airtime for it under the principle of freedom of speech that they hate. Of course, their argument was ridiculous - the British Isles won't sink! Well, not for a good few years anyway - and that'll be because of climate change and rising sea levels, not immigrants. But I actually do think it was a good thing for me to leave the country and head to Canada. Though it's not for the reasons you may think.

When I left, a year ago, I was fully aware of the "Kick in the Arts" I blogged about previously - the freezing of funds for the arts under High Chancellor Tony Blair. People all around me, in the cultural sector, were scrambling around like headless chickens, wondering what they were going to do without government hand-outs now the man they voted for had removed his socialist mask and revealed himself as a clone of Empress Margaret Thatcher, who to this day is probably being kept alive on technology that also helped to create robotic Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

Of course, there were other avenues to sustainability, and success. But the small-time, small-town mentality is often more difficult to escape in South Yorkshire than even its infamous prison Doncatraz itself - there are only a few visionaries who can think outside the walls in their own minds. Almost everyone else there was desperate, and bitter - as I was packing my bags to head to a place still struggling to get rid of the SARS virus but also where the cancer of cuts to the arts hadn't quite spread yet.

I'm fully at peace with my decision now, and everything that followed. My best friend of five years and composer for my films had taken my departure very badly and had sabotaged my former company in my absence, a company I'd built from scratch into an organization on the brink of breakthrough success and sustainability with resources, services, and even a contract to run the community cinema where its offices were based - at Montgomery Hall in the town of Wath, right in the heart of South Yorkshire. This meddling, of course, led to the young profit-hungry entrepreneurs who had been paid thousands through my projects to register themselves as "non-profit" and become eligible for taking over my defunct company's loot - computers, cameras, screening equipment, you name it. Wow, she really gave them the fruits of my labour! But hey, they won't be demanding any more pay cheques from me with all that stash, and at least they're doing decent if safe work; it's not like they're selling it for smack or something. Well...not yet, anyway - like the rest of Rotherham, they'll be needing to if things continue as they are.

My bitter best friend - like myself, already in her early thirties - had become frustrated with the inability to break through in the music industry, in spite of playing gigs up and down that island allegedly on the verge of sinking. But as a guy in the film business, the newspapers still refer to me as a "young filmmaker," which I find hilarious, while my friend was considered past her prime in the music industry, which was equally ridiculous. At Montgomery Hall (named after James Montgomery, the poet who was twice imprisoned for his commitment to social justice), its boss offered my friend the opportunity to build on the local fan base she had there by hosting a monthly rock night! This, of course, would have enabled her to utilize that base to attract fans to other gigs in other towns, attracting attention to her talent as well, perhaps forcing the labels to sign her and find a way to market her. But hey, apparently I had it all wrong, by planning to leave and launch SilenceBreaker Media, and she rejected the proposal because she felt the financial aspect of the offer from the struggling venue was insulting - cutting off her nose to spite her face. She's now working in youth centres while calling herself a singer because she gets a gig once every four months, in the same area, in front of the same people. It's sad, especially when you consider what might have been.

Meanwhile, the group she and I had helped form - Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance (or "ROAR" - yeah, I know it sounds cheesy) - was rolling along, slowly but surely, developing an independent arts centre without having the foresight to realize that most local artists wouldn't be able to afford the rent for it; the cultural community there needed to be supported first - not least because the BNP had made massive, significant gains in Rotherham since my film had been released, stating that the BNP had been held at bay. So that part of my movie is, sadly, already out-of-date - but hey, we all have deadlines to keep, and can't keep adding stuff, especially when you have as your editors two kids who would seem more at home somewhere else, asking "Would you like fries with that?" and dreaming of making real movies, while plotting ways to blackmail independent filmmakers for more money.

So, I offered less of an olive branch and more of a lifeline to the group, and to the town: the opportunity to include Escape from Doncatraz as part of a festival of events in the town centre under the hallowed Spiegeltent. Hated by the BNP so much that even infamous candidate Marlene Guest herself wrote into the paper to call it a "waste of money," the Spiegeltent is a famous construction made from canvas and wood and decorated with stained glass and mirrors (imagine a Tim Burton film, but, um, set in Rotherham - which, I realize, would be even scarier than Sweeney Todd, Beetlejuice and Sleepy Hollow combined).

The screening - in Rotherham's town centre square, and completely free of charge - had been discussed for a couple of years, and it was now time for us to make it happen. Escape from Doncatraz being shown to ordinary, working class voters frustrated with New Labour and now voting BNP was ideal - heck, they were my target audience! Well, after the administrator said she'd speak with members of ROAR first and get back to me, I tried to remain enthusiastic but had a bad feeling in my gut (and it wasn't because I'd eaten a Mad Cow BurgerTM from a Rotherham butcher shop - Jamie Oliver would've slapped my wrist).

Sure enough, they never returned my calls, text messages, and emails. The chair of ROAR, and head of Open Minds Theatre Company, Steve Rogers - the kind of upper-middle class bloke who thinks the depressed Rotherham's "marvelous," and returns from a first-class plane trip to Kashmir wearing a kind of kaftan; you know the type - obviously cared more about opening minds than changing minds. The people of Rotherham have still yet to see this film that documents exactly why their town - far from being "marvelous" in the eyes of the working class people who've lived there all their lives - is still struggling. So, again due to small minds, the people are losing out. But hey, at least they had a Love Music, Hate Racism event held in a building that acts as a museum to the steelworks that once stood there (actually located in the Sheffield area) - full of activists and students, and barely a BNP voter from Rotherham in sight. But, to be fair, I'll be the first to admit that there's nothing like preaching to the converted to get yourself a pat on the back.

Of course, in addition to these recent events it's also become evident that Canada is not the promised land it, um, promised to be. Stephen Harper - in addition to telling opponents that resistance is futile and that, as with Tory and former Liberal Party member Wajid Khan, they may be assimilated - has slashed funding into the arts as well, prompting thousands to go "Faceless for the Arts" on Facebook. Now, of course I'm not trying to imply that the Prime Minister of Canada is leading a bunch of Star Trek-style robots in running the government; after all, we're unlikely to feel The Wrath of Khan - Wajid or otherwise. I just doubt Harper's human, that's all. So given that he himself is a robot, there's no surprise he doesn't care about the arts, and it's technology that really gets his eloectrodes pulsating with power. Kitchener's neighbouring city of Waterloo is called an "intelligent community" because it's the home of the BlackberryTM - what does that tell you?

I recently attended an event in Guelph, where Naomi Klein - a friend of one of my more recent collaborators in Toronto - spoke out about her background; her parents coming across the border into Canada in opposition to the Vietnam War, one working for the health sector, the other, for the world-renowned National Film Board. And now, both are under attack by Harper's hard drive that's pre-programmed to DESTROY! But again, the locals don't help matters. Sure, ROAR (again, I'm aware it's a cheesy name - please stop writing in to me!) may have become a clique of drunken egos who think that poor is cool, but at least they stuck together. However, the tourism office in their town could justifiably put up a sign saying "Rotherham: You'll Never Leave!" because, far from being enchanting, the town has a clique that simply won't let you leave! Yep, their biggest idiosyncrasy, aside from cheesy names, was also wanting to stick the knife in your back rather than wish you well if you turned to move on for other creative endeavors. In Kitchener, home of SilenceBreaker Media, it's so difficult to help the arts scene grasp the concept of collaboration over competition, though there are some amazing groups there who do "get it." But it's like the tradition of the Left: keep arguing over petty differences instead of putting the principles first.

The difficulty we've had with moving SilenceBreaker Media along is unbelievable, even though these things are always inevitably challenging, and you brace yourself for it. Patience is a virtue, especially when you're predominantly acting as house husband while waiting for your visa to come through. It's just disheartening for me when people who claimed to be in it for the long haul, for the community and for the principle of alternative media, quit the process due to a single difference of opinion with me, claiming I've "turned off everyone" I've ever known except my parents. Not true! I may not be turning on any of them, if you know what I mean, but I have at least, like...four friends! I mean, I don't even know any of those people on my MySpace "top friends" list - ask them! I just put those beautiful people there to look...well...kind of cool.

As my family said to me a few days ago, "it's like being related to bloody Bob Dylan," because these people I've "edited out of the frame" are still either calling themselves writers because they write about me while working in a furniture shop, or whining songs written about me and put on MySpace to be downloaded - by 43 people at the time of writing (and 40 of them were probably by me...hey, it's about me, can you blame me?) Meanwhile, my true, loyal friends are also devoting poems to me in their books (cheap plug: buy D Shellhammer's book Like a Goat in a Hail Storm here!) But hey, you take the rough with the smooth, and there's no such thing as bad press, I guess. And it's a good thing, too - because by doing my own thing and making my own decisions, I've pissed off a heck of a lot of people along the way. And I'll roll with the punches. Some wanted to be followers, some wanted to be the leader, some wanted to control me, and some are still lamenting my absence. Oh, heck, man, I just want to get art made - as much as I'm flattered by the bitter attention, I can't relate to wasting ability on people from the past when there are such big issues going on in the world.

So, sue me - for slander, libel, damages or divorce. Those of us who still truly give a shit will keep on rolling, putting pettiness aside and thinking outside the box to get the changes made. And you can expect some big changes in the near future. The standing ovation from two hundred people on May Day in a country I'd barely been in a few months was just the beginning. SilenceBreaker Media is going to be huge. Because now I have the time to devote myself to that which I long ago married: media activism.

- Jay Baker; Sheffield, England

Labels: BNP, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Rotherham, Stephen Harper, Tony Blair

Sunday, July 6, 2008

One Spicy Meatball

There's nothing like the world premiere of a movie to gather a couple hundred of concerned citizens into one place at one time. But I swear, I never intended to whip people up into a foaming frenzy!

My feature-length documentary, Escape from Doncatraz, had its world premiere in the City Hall of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, which is the home of the film's rightful owner, SilenceBreaker Media. Having sat through a ninety-four minute warning of what Canada might become in the coming months and years following Britain's transition to a surveillance state, the shocked and angry Canadians had some suggestions for their Commonwealth counterparts across the ocean during my Q&A session with them: "Why doesn't anyone just smash the CCTV cameras? It's easy!" I then responded by saying I wasn't entirely sure, but nor was I sure I was safe here considering I'm not a citizen yet and already I've led a few hundred people into the corridors of municipal power where they've become a (justifiably) angry mob talking about overthrowing a police state! Luckily, Kitchener has continuously pulled together to actually oppose any attempts to install surveillance cameras in their town.

I guess I gravitate towards centres of struggle. And struggle this town has. Kitchener was once known as Berlin, built by German immigrants who named it after a certain city you may have heard of in their homeland. Come the tensions and xenophobia of the First World War, the city's lakeside statue of the Kaiser was actually thrown from its pedestal into the water, superseded just a few yards away by a statue of Queen Victoria - and the park was named Victoria Park, which lies just a stone's throw away from where I now live. With Kaiser Wilhelm I swimming with the fishes (and later disappearing like something from a Simpsons episode on Jebediah Springfield), it was also decided that the city needed a change of name. And so, to disassociate themselves from such things as tyranny, ruthlessness and brutality, they did what any of us would do in such a situation, and named it instead after the British icon Lord Kitchener - the handlebar-moustachioed chap of confused sexuality whose most significant contribution to the world was his perfection of the concentration camp. Yeah, that's much better.

Since those dark days, Kitchener has moved onwards and upwards, with a significant manufacturing sector that employs almost a quarter of the city's entire labour force. But that figure's been falling, and its employment power is probably far less than that by the time you've reached the end of this sentence. Western countries' borders, you see, are continuously tightened for refugees fleeing war, famine, terror and torture, but are left open for corporations to come in, and also go out - meaning that many of them have taken advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement that's tightened borders and built walls stopping people, but made it easier in many ways for companies to move their factories to one of the other NAFTA countries where it's easier to increase the gap between sales and wages (*cough*Mexico*cough*) and thus make more money. Kitchener's felt the effects of this, losing factories and leaving people jobless, with an Ontario welfare system that - perhaps thanks to former Tory premier Mike Harris - leaves people receiving a cheque of barely more than $500 per month, meaning they can most likely choose to either feed themselves, or house themselves, but certainly not both. Well, most people choose food, and stay alive, even if it means sleeping in the street. Some are housed, but starved.

So, Kitchener's had its ass kicked, and is still struggling to hold on, but is already regarded as a "post-industrial" city. Walk around the place and you'll see several streets with tall buildings, unique stores, comparatively few multinational chain stores, cafes and coffee shops with people talking and laughing, and activity until the early hours of the night. You could be fooled into thinking Billy Joel was based here in his video for "Uptown Girl." The Uptown Girl in question here, though, would likely be found up King Street, in Waterloo, last year named The World's Top Intelligent Community™ - even though both "intelligent" and "community" likely come bottom of everyone's list when they're asked to think of two words to describe Waterloo. This single-street "city" feels more like a live-action Disney movie-set full of bars that seem like Hooters for the Higher Class - with the miserable expressions of waitresses to prove it. There, they actually take part in a kind of "cleansing" by picking up homeless people and dropping them off down in Kitchener (perhaps thinking the sign for "Kitchener" was referring to one of Lord Kitchener's concentration camps.) Heck, they even call Kitchener "downtown" and Waterloo "uptown," and this is reflected by the down-to-earth blue-collar folk in the former and the green-washed middle class consumers - pardon me, "Ethical Consumers" - in the latter.

Waterloo, though, is home to the main campuses of two major Canadian universities. The first is Wilfrid Laurier University, where my partner studies culture as part of a uni undercurrent of arts and activism amongst a mass of fake-tanned orange skin and bought-and-paid-for business students regurgitating information in the hopes of being good little capitalists (rich capitalists, that is - too bad I haven't the heart to tell them that the majority of them will actually end up poor - sink or swim, baby, just like the teacher told you!) The second one is the University of Waterloo, where geeks go to learn how to be ubergeeks, and also home to the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG), one of many chartered PIRGs that were essentially conceived by one Ralph Nader almost forty years ago, and one of my very first stops in my tour of the area during my preparations to move here. I was impressed.

WPIRG utilizes undergraduate funds to allow "students to work in the public interest," researching and campaigning through action groups. One of these action groups, Food Not Bombs, has been active for many years, acting on a simple concept: war is bad, feeding people is good - such a simple concept that even I can understand it. It kind of sounds like a Canadian peacekeeping mission, except this actually works and doesn't ask for oil in return. There's no catch here! Better yet, they've been based in Kitchener so that the "bums" - rubbing their own bums after having it not only kicked by Mike Harris, Stephen Harper, and NAFTA, but also having landed on it upon being dumped off downtown - can actually be fed, for free. Many downtown businesses even helped Food Not Bombs, donating their slightly expired shelf products to the cause.

Yes, all was well with the world in downtown Kitchener's business-as-usual community: corporations were closing plants and moving to Mexico; former workers were buying cat food with their welfare cheque in order to feed themselves; the homeless were being moved away from the nice, clean, white streets- sorry street of Waterloo while the SUV-driving soccer moms bought their compact flourescent lightbulbs to sleep well at night; and dirty hippy-loving no-good geeks were giving away free food and opposing war. This was the Kitchener I'd grown to know and love. The Kitchener I'd become used to. The Kitchener I knew we could depend on.

Then came the cease-and-desist order.

Someone (for "someone," read: local businessman) had complained to the council about Food Not Bombs being based right beside City Hall every Saturday lunchtime. But who? And why? My contact in WPIRG called me and suggested that the next time Food Not Bombs went to City Hall anyway and gave away hot meals to the homeless as usual, I ought to show up with my camera. So I did. (You can see the footage here)

Wow, pretty scary people, for sure. It was almost possible to begin to understand why someone complained. I mean, nice, attractive, smiling young people? Giving away free food to the homeless? Promoting peace?! Why, in this day and age it was almost "terrorism"! After all, people have been arrested for less. But as you can see from the footage, no one was. And there I was carrying my camera like a tourist, expecting to see tazer-happy mounties zapping people. But it didn't happen! No one was even asked to stop serving up the soup.

What I don't show in the footage is my conversation with the kids in cool t-shirts - I asked them if they thought the culprit could be the David's Gourmet store, a recent arrival on King Street right opposite the place where Food Not Bombs stand; the group figured that the people there seemed nice since coming downtown and wouldn't complain about them. I asked them if it could be William's "Coffee Pub" (no, they don't serve booze and I have no idea why it's called a pub); they said they'd been beside William's for years and already settled a misunderstanding with them a long time ago. So, "whodunnit?" What a mystery! I wanted to take a trip to Baker Street and find Sherlock Holmes himself. But I had a movie to premiere.

At the screening, aside from, y'know, the proposed mass destruction of CCTV cameras and light things of that nature, other issues arose, and given the number of homeless people attending the screening as well, the Q&A session moved onto the topic of Food Not Bombs (I'd like to be able to take credit for the homeless people in attendance, but they were on site due to an awareness-raising action outside, no doubt organized by more freedom-hating terrorists or communists; regrettably, one of them was drunk and too vociferous during my opening speech and was removed by security). I handed the mic over to my friend Evan Coole, secretary of SilenceBreaker Media who also happens to work for WPIRG, and who explained the situation far better than I ever could have, for obvious reasons.

Just a few days later, a public meeting about Food Not Bombs took place, and the cover was blown: David's Gourmet had indeed been the NIMBY submitting complaints to the city council, and David himself was there, backed-up by like-minded members of the small business community (well, one: a representative from Petsche's Shoes), to be greeted by the public - including Food Not Bombs and all of their supporters. He'd have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those pesky kids! There were some heated exchanges: from some guy shouting at the mayor (but, unlike the homeless dude at my screening, not being removed presumably because he was middle class), to the Petsche's Shoes woman actually claiming Evan Coole and his ilk were probably in cahoots with Al Qaeda (I told you it was terrorism). But the worst - the absolute worst - was yet to come.

I was still recovering from the official May Day launch of SilenceBreaker Media, the screening, and the film festival submissions and distribution deal pursuits to be able to make it to the public meeting, but once I found out about it, I was pretty peeved - aside from, of course, having a smug smirk on my kisser for correctly suspecting David's Gourmet (hey, it's good to make up for all the times I've been wrong!) I mean, here was a PIRG action group distributing pamphlets on peace and feeding people failed by a flawed system, and some businessman comes from Waterloo to Kitchener and formally complains about the kinds of people and behaviour it attracts!

Being from the battered (you guessed it) post-industrial town of Doncaster, England, I found this even more sickening - back there I'd been harassed, abused and assaulted numerous times, so I knew what a rough town really was, and to suggest Kitchener is ever at all unsafe - let alone in the city centre on a Saturday afternoon - shows what a bubble some of these prejudiced middle class Canadians have lived in all of their coddled little lives.

David launched a blog of his own in order to either soften the blow of bad publicity he was receiving (even by mainstream media standards) or to actually capitalize on the buzz by bringing people into his store (perhaps believing there is, in fact, no such thing as bad publicity - which is in fact complete bollocks...just look at Michael Jackson.) I couldn't resist writing a response to it, as politely as I could. David then pushed his proposed campaign, "Take Kitchener Back," adopting the same principles of cleansing as uptown Waterloo, and only stopping short of the concept of eugenics that was, funnily enough, spearheaded by local hero A.R. Kaufman (appropriately, seemingly the inspiration for the city's yuppie condo building The Kaufman Lofts). Finally, when David's rants revealed his pro-military, pro-capitalist politics and he began to further angrily condemn Food Not Bombs, I posted a second time and suggested he must prefer Hunger and War and challenged him on almost every point he made - only for him to bypass my post and pick on some of the other, more emotional (though no less valid) posters.
Note: Since writing this blog, my posts have been deleted from David's page, and takekitchenerback.com has been pulled at time of writing

During this dialogue, despite the membership to a Facebook group called "Boycott David's Gourmet" rising to a staggering 500 people in mere days, David said his business hadn't at all suffered, and claimed sales had actually risen by 30%, which was brilliant considering he'd barely had a few days since the controversy began let alone a full financial year to estimate from, and neither I nor my partner ever seemed to see anyone shop there anymore while across the street working on our laptops. But hey, I could be wrong. I could be wrong about all of this.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it's okay to say you're not racist, or sexist, or homophobic, but talk about "those kinds of people" - those without homes. Maybe it's okay for the police to rough up the homeless simply because they asked for change while corporate charities that prop up this sick system we live under essentially panhandle on the streets, harassing passers-by to sign up and donate just a few dollars a month from their bank account so charity company executives can drive their fancy cars and condone capitalism. Maybe I'm totally wrong. Maybe it's time we started supporting our CEOs and fat, rich, white businessmen like David by standing outside his store with signs saying "Take Kitchener Back," "Food Not Bums," "I'm Buying Food - Jealous?" and "Homeless Go Home (or somewhere)!" Yeah. Maybe it's time to stop beating up on the little guys like David (figuratively speaking) and tell the homeless people to keep moving on, to somewhere a little further south, like Cambridge. But wait - then the problem goes somewhere else, instead of going away, right?

So maybe I was right all along. We need to take Kitchener back, alright. Because the day we start believing that we're so desperate that we need a single gourmet food store more than we do the delivery of decency and a basic human right - to eat - is the day we die. Kitchener's future lies with activism and arts, two things that merged that day of the world premiere of Escape from Doncatraz, the day SilenceBreaker Media launched - the day Kitchener had been taken back already.

To address the issues raised here and help the working class, go to the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice. To find out more about Kitchener's branch, email me.

- Jay Baker; Kitchener, Canada

Labels: Stephen Harper

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

A Letter to Canada

Dear Canada,

I miss you already. Truth be told, I first fell in love with you back in 1999, when fear of nuclear warheads flying overhead between the Soviet Union and the United States had long since been replaced by fear of the Y2K Problem. Funny how it often emerges most of our fears were pointless, huh? It makes you wonder who makes us so afraid, and why.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know how things are back here in Britain. Well, we have over four million CCTV cameras, and over four million people have their DNA samples on a government database, stored after arrest whether found guilty or not. We have house arrests, detention centres, ASBOs, and the tearing apart of our magna carta. A couple of years ago, we experienced some terrorist attacks in London as a reaction to our involvement in Iraq.

I'm sorry for what we've done, Canada. We did our best to stop this bombing business overseas, but Tony Blair, our fuhrer, did it anyway. He lost quite a lot of votes at elections, and, as these megalomaniacal dictator types often do, he blamed his cabinet rather than his own actions, words, and choices. It reminds me of Hitler's last days in the bunker. But the fact is, Blair and his party remained because they had such a huge majority for the last ten years. That'll probably change now, but things in general won't, because people here see the Tories as an alternative, which of course is ridiculous. And this brings me onto my reason for writing this letter to you...

There was a bit of corruption there in your Liberal Party for a while there, huh? But you put in your Tories, led by Stephen Harper, who, let's face it, really is a cyborg built by a laboratory run by Halliburton. He's radio controlled by George W Bush Jr. And when a leader says he's close to God, or talks about having God tell him to lead his country to war, don't you find that a bit...well...creepy? I mean, isn't that what Hitler said? "I'm acting as an agent of the Lord, our creator," and all that bollocks? Since when has killing people been a deeply religious, peaceful thing to do? I don't recall the Buddhists who tried to sell me some "monk rock" CDs in the street recently telling me anything about dropping bombs on men, women, and children for ol' Buddha himself. And that dude's a skinhead!

Oh, Canada. You used to be so lovely. Your dollar bills had the Queen's ugly mug on it, sure, but we understood you clinging to the Commonwealth so as to decrease the number of times fellow world travelers confused you with Yanks. Your money also had wildlife and poetry on it, your news was about speed-bumps, collapsed bridges, and, well, the weather. So were your conversations.

But what now? Now, words like "feminism" and "socialism" are dirty words there, too. You switched on your TV set and found your news was full of reports of a serial killer who had hacked up hookers from Vancouver (a pig farmer, no less - always a connection between lack of concern for animals and a lack of concern for humans!) And you got yourself a Prime Minister who, aside from being Mr Roboto, loves oil, loves war, claims he has God on his side, and - wait a moment! - don't we know another world leader like this? If you don't want to be like the United States, then get rid of him. Because if you don't, you can be part of the Commonwealth to comfort yourself of a distinction as long as you like, but you'll also head in the direction Britain's now gone. *cough* police state *cough*

There's still a chance, though. There's a minority government there. And I don't care if Stephane Dion's so "nice" he makes Robert Goulet look like Bret "The Hitman" Hart or has Maher Arar resembling Bill Maher, he still has more charisma and principles than Stephen Harper, so stop being picky! Surely now, after going in to Afghanistan and coming out of the Kyoto Treaty, you know you've got a real tool in charge. Get rid of him, and you can go back to asking each other "How are you doing?" through mere politeness, ending sentences as though you're asking a question, and - most important of all - talking about the weather! In an ideal world, there'd be nothing much more to worry about. You were always as close as it got, Canada. Save yourself. Save yourself now. That is all.

All my love,

Jay Baker, Esq

- Jay Baker; Sheffield, England

Labels: Adolf Hitler, George W Bush, Iraq, Stephen Harper, Tony Blair

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Not a Good Time To Be a Bad Guy

I recently attended the Creative Clusters conference in Gateshead/Newcastle, England, a three-day event in which people from the creative industries gather in seminars where speakers generally make very interesting subjects seem boring. I think it's a symptom of wearing a suit and tie - as evidenced by the people in power, right? It takes more than a thumping theme tune to maintain our interest - or, for that matter, playing Swallow the Leader with an intern. Boring! We can see far more sensationalism on soap operas and in loser- I mean, Closer magazine.

Anyway, whilst attending the conference during those three days, as I went downstairs for breakfast in the hotel, the News on the TV was reporting on the Republicans' loss of control of Congress, and Tony Blair becoming the first-ever Prime Minister to be questioned by police. When I headed across the street to The Sage building and sat in my seat for the first seminar, a woman and I started discussing the day's current affairs. I said "I guess it's not a good time to be a bad guy, eh?" and people around us laughed and agreed. Sure, this was the arty-farty cultured folk of the creative industries, but the fact is, the feeling reflected that of most of the people on both sides of the Atlantic.

The times, they are a-changin'. In the United States, George W Bush can't run for President again, and even if he could, he'd lose due to a Nixon-level lack of popularity, so there will be a brand-new leader chosen at the next American election. In Britain, Tony Blair has finally acknowledged that he'll be resigning this year (before members of his own party are forced to lynch him by his blue tie), so there'll also be a brand-new leader chosen in the next British election. And in Canada, although Stephen Harper could still run at the next election there, he'd be wise not to, as his chances of winning are the same as seeing a three-legged cat bury a turd on one of Canada's frozen lakes.

So, let's look at the situation in these three big English-speaking nations of the Western world...

The United States will be the first to choose their leader - at least, if they're allowed to choose this time around! This time next year, we'll already have the first votes through, in Iowa, home of Slipknot and, funnily enough, Tom Vilsack, the state's Governor. It's doubtful he'd ever become President, but he may make a good running mate for someone. Barack Obama will certainly be needing one; he's hoping America is finally ready to elect a black President, but the people may go for it just because Obama versus Osama would be an even better grudge match than Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. And he already resembles the pro wrestler-turned-actor, The Rock, and I can just see him speaking of himself in the third person already; "Barack says he'll lay the smack-down on the Republican's roody-poo candy-ass. If you smell what Barack is cookin'!" And I don't mean laying smack down in the same way Anna Nicole Smith did - Barack may smoke cigarettes, but I ain't fakin': Barack ain't bakin'. At least the late, former Ms Hogan was a decent role model in the sense that she was just about the only full-figured supermodel of the stick-insect-obsessed 1990s.

Speaking of role model women, if Americans aren't ready to elect a black President, are they ready to choose a female one? Hillary Clinton is so populist she'd sign up for Big Brother if she thought she'd win votes on it (nah, as if a politician would be crazy enough to go on that show, ha ha!) But maybe if she does get ahead, she'll get her own back on Bill by getting head herself, under the table in the Oral Office of the White House.

John Edwards is a safe bet, but nobody knows who the heck he is. Even so, he could still beat the pathetic Republican shower of candidates, even if he had the hopeless John Kerry as his running mate. Just so long as they don't choose Al Gore; as much as I like the thought of commentators shouting "Gore! Gore! Gore!" on TV on election night, this guy couldn't even win when his opponent had actually lost!

So, the above-mentioned shower of Republicans consists of Mitt Romney (Mormon; Americans are probably even more suspicious of Mormons than they are of blacks and women), John McCain (Americans may hate the elderly much more judging by the way they take care of them and the sick, so he's out of the question), Rudolph Guiliani (still trying to play the martyred Mayor of New York, but too dirty for a lot of the good, God-fearing folk), Sam Brownback (makes Dubyuh seem like a wishy-washy liberal, so no chance), and Chuck Hagel (one of the few Republicans to oppose the invasion of Iraq, but also a Vietnam veteran, he is probably the only chance in hell the GOP has). So, given that Anybody But Gore could beat any one of this shower (including the Democratic Party donkey mascot - that's right, an ass), the future looks very bright indeed in the cradle of the best and the worst.

Tony Blair's dream of becoming the next Margaret Thatcher was surely realized. But be careful what you wish for, Tony, because what you forgot about whilst you were sat beside the bed with Dubyuh making your prayers to God was the fact that though Maggie, too, won three elections, her party ultimately forced her to go, because nobody wanted to work on Maggie's Farm no more. History has repeated itself, with Blair's poodle alter ego and its puppy dog eyes at America costing him votes at the last election as well as cash-for-honours scandals meaning he has become a significant liability for the Labour Party. Already, as predicted, his expected successor, Gordon Brown, has tried to save his own time as Prime Minister, in jeopardy before it's even begun, by emphasizing to the people that he will not go along with everything America says, and will respect international law.

The Liberal Democrats, even led by old Sir Menzies Campbell, are still looking like the only attractive alternative - with their leader, known as Ming the Merciless, being a cancer-beating former Olympic sprinter, in for the long haul, and likely to instigate a 1974-style hung Parliament in which he'd be depended on.

On the opposing side, the Tories have done the unthinkable, by shifting to the left of Labour, although to be fair that's not saying much since Labour have become a party so far right these days that even the Nazi BNP are struggling to hold their ground over there. We have a party obsessed by civilian surveillance, DNA databases, trial without jury, and ASBOs, but Gordon Brown's only opinions on the subject of this Big Brother business has been the TV show - telling interviewers in India that Britain isn't a racist nation like the program may have us believe. Who knows, maybe he'll try telling that to the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by police on the London Underground for little more than having dark skin, the offending officers never brought to trial, Scotland Yard's Ian Blair being constantly defended by his namesake, who has paid the price at the polls.

Yep, with voters willing to give Anyone But Labour a go, and a hung Parliament just waiting to happen, Gordo may have to think twice before following such draconian Blairite laws as the one created to get rid of Westminster-based protester Brian Haw - instead a loophole allowing him to continue demonstrating while all the rest of us were still banned!

Meanwhile, on Canada's Parliament Hill, a different kind of demonstrator can be seen, in a country where those generally complaining have for decades been the right-wingers who rarely got a look-in. Reverend Tony Van Hee has been busy holding placards against abortion and even gay marriages, which is funny, seeing as he neither has the ability to become pregnant himself nor, presumably, has same-sex attractions (ones towards children don't count, people - stop that talk!)

Stephen Harper, aside from resembling Mr Roboto complete with plastic hair and a grand total of two (count them: two!) pre-programmed facial expressions including ArroganceTM and DisgustTM, has already had Canadians slapping their foreheads and wondering why they ever voted him in, but the truth is, they weren't so much voting anyone in as voting out those before him. Now, they're preparing to bring in the Liberals led by Stephane Dion as a reaction to such shocking incidents as Roboto's relationship with Dubyuh leading to a dark-skinned Canadian by the name of Maher Arar being gifted from the Mounties to the Yanks, who then sent him to the Middle East, where he was tortured. Oops! However, so fragile is the Tory's control that unlike his British counterpart, Steve distanced himself from the law enforcement officials responsible for the over-reaction, and RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli was forced to resign. Yet still people wonder, "Can Halliburton make androids?" I mean, sure, Arnold Schwarzenegger may not be American enough to be leader in the States, but is Stephen Harper human enough to be leader in Canada? Let's check this guy for "Made in the USA" marks on the back of his neck. But then, his pal Tony Blair'd probably prefer it to be a bar-code, since that's what he wants his people to bear.

Elsewhere in the Americas, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and others have got together to create an intercontinental network of socialist governments proving that it can - and does - work (what a shocker!) Together they are the sleeping giant. And across the planet, China's economy grows fast, and Russia remind their old Cold War Game friends that they're seemingly starting a nuclear arms race again, except this time it's countries in the Middle East wanting to tool-up to the teeth. And given the state of Iraq at the moment, looking at that mess, and America's blatant disregard for international law, wouldn't you be doing the same if you were situated just across the street? I bet even countries like Monaco and Belize are trying to buy nuclear weapons now too!

Four years ago this week, millions of us marched, all around the world, to express our opposition to a proposed illegal attack on Iraq. The politicians dismissed us, and yet everything we said at the time - lack of legality, lack of WMDs, lack of common sense or decency - has come to be realized as true, and the politicians who supported the attack have suffered, whilst those who condemned it have gained. This latter group, comprised of the likes of Barack Obama, Sir Menzies Campbell, Stephane Dion, and many more, just also happen to be the ones with momentum, and the ones who declare their desire for a world less dependent on oil and more about investment on public services through taxing those who can afford to pay for it.

The tables have turned, the tide has changed, and now it is our turn, at last, to put in power people who really reflect our feelings and wishes, and then make sure they know their expendability if they, too, dare to disappoint us. People are no longer going to be afraid of their governments; governments will be afraid of their people. This is our time now. Oh, indeed, it's not a good time at all to be a bad guy!

- Jay Baker; Newcastle, England

Labels: Barack Obama, George W Bush, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, Margaret Thatcher, Stephen Harper, Tony Blair

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