Post New Years Disorder

January 4th, 2010 Thomasso

Now that everyone is nicely in debt, suffering from the flu, and ready to get back to work, I now must take a step back and see the world that I am part of and ask myself why people do what they do, especially pondering the question of why is everyone so pissed off this time of year? Since the new year has started I have noticed a shift in the people around me, and more so from those who I work with, but this also applies to some of my friends too. However, I think there is more to it than meets the eye?

We just got off of two long weekends in a row with two paid statutory holidays. We went through, for most cultures, the most festive season in the calender; of course, I am the exception as I don’t celebrate the Christian, Jewish or Muslim traditions, but the Season of Tom (sic), which is 365 days per year–I am not a lemming. I enjoy everyday and treat everyday like it is New Years. So most people gave each other gifts and had fun with family and friends, and I am sure it was time well spent, but what happened afterwords, when it is time to go back and renew the year, the week, and continue on with our jobs?

So why does everyone seem so pissed off? Is it becuase the party is over? Hum? No, I think it goes deeper than that?

I think part of the answer is in the frustration that times are leaner, and becuase of the tight economic era that we now live in, people are “taking it out” on the first person that they encounter becuase they are frustrated with themselves . People have over spent. As the cost of living shoots upwards, so does the cost of giving in the monetary sense. So far since I have come back to work I have heard nothing but complaining about how in debt everyone is, and how expensive things are getting. Also, the labourers seem unwilling to motivate themselves as one person put it, “How can I work for this much when it now costs me more to do the job in the first place…” When they complain, the management resorts to apathy towards them. When they come to me, they act sometimes so vulgar and pathetic that I tune them out too.

Take for example the “Coughing More-On.” Today while I was setting everything up to start my day, this one guy comes in coughing and hacking his lunges out becuase he is in the full throws of the flu. First, he shows up at work so sick that he could pass out from coughing so much.  He then starts coughing without covering his mouth. He told me that If he caught it, then it should get it passed around also so he can “give it back” to whom ever he caught it from down the line. Stupendous logic here, eh? I know for someone with AIDS, there is a section in the Criminal Code of Canada that deals with that, and under the Infectious Diseases and Control Act, there are provisions for dealing with those people, but there ought to be something in there to the flu too, especially on the job. But I ask this question, because he is sick, does that mean he must make everyone else around him sick too?

So money and health seem to be the first casualties of the new year. This does not surprise me? I heard on CBC Radio One that the stats on consumer spending surveyed by the Bank of Montreal says that Canadians are confident about the economy. First, a Bank telling us that we are happy with the economy – now that is a joke. But it also says that if the Banks are happy with the way we are spending, and unemployment is still increasing, than that only leave debt as the only logical answer to this social phenomenon. Throw in some flu germs and you now have the recipe for Post New Years Disorder.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Social Justice, Social economics | 3 Comments »

Am-Canada We Stand On Guard for Thee

December 27th, 2009 Thomasso

Yesterday I was asked to travel across for the border with my friend who loves to shop. A seasoned world shopper, he is the type of person that scours the Intranet, news papers and radio for deals anywhere he can get one. He saves, listens and plans to the last detail on anything that he wants. Whether from a large ticket item, or just a box of soup, the routine is the same.

The mission for yesterday was simple: gas, boxing day sales and clothing. Buying gas in the USA is a no-brainier because their gas prices are less taxed than Canada’s. Actually when you drive a humongous SUV like my friend’s, filling it up with gasoline is a big deal. Buying it at $0.70 per litre is a far cry from buying it at the Metro Vancouver prices of a $110.0 per litre. Naturally you want to stock up on it too, so he had a spare tank installed last year, and he can make that fill-up last a whole month now. He drives a lot. Then there was the boxing day sales. The Americans are hurting, and as such, prices are literally rock bottom as their economy is still falling into chaos. As my friend put it, “when you start buying, you have to loose your sense of reason and start to think like an American when searching, and only then will you start to find those deals.” We went to a computer store just North of Everett Washington, and he purchased a very nice lap-top for less then $350.00 CND, about same type of computer as a $1400.00 unit at Future-shop here in Langley City. On our way back to Canada, he stopped at a Mall near Blaine, Washington, where there was a clothing store that was having huge discount price sale on everything from men’s suites, jeans to jackets, and he hoarded up. A pair of jeans were going for $5.99 each—and they were not those big-box store knock-offs either—all Red-Tab Jeans!

Now the next step was getting the almost $4000.00 worth of stuff into Canada. In that same Mall there is a brokerage company that deals particularly with Canadian shopper’s. For a small fee, and I do not know how much, you can pay them to do the brokerage and shipping for you so that your goods will cross the broader without fail. They handle everything from customs, right down to the logistics. Usually within forty-eight hours they will have your stuff inside Canada waiting for you to pick them up. When in Canada, you sign some papers, give them money, fill out the decelerations, and you are set. Everything is paid for, the Man on both sides of the boarder, and the middle men are taken care of before you leave for home.

It was explained to me that cross boarder shopping is only worth it if you are planing large buys.  If you are one of those people who only spends about $400.00 down there, then you might as well stay home and buy it at Canadian prices because you are not saving that much, if anything, including your time.

Now for me, I was just there for the ride. But what I saw in the US made me really think about the state of the global economy, and Canada’s growing, yet very fragile, small economy, and I did some contrast and comparisons from looking out the window as we drove around. For every one billboard in Canada, there are least ten per mile of road in the US. I read a local new paper in Everett, and it might as well have been a twenty page flyer instead of a news paper. One of the public schools I saw had a ad banner promoting the football team with a food and beverage logo around it, and it was at least ten metres across. (I’m glad schools are at least “ad free” here in Canada, though I suspect that will change very soon.) I saw very few people smiling down there as I walked along with my friend into the shops and Malls. And the homeless rate in Washington State looks to be about the same as it is in the Lower Mainland.

I did not buy anything on this trip. I was just keeping the seat warm and being company as we waited in the line up at the boarder and the rest of the trip. The total trip was about ten hours, so a good day, and I had fun seeing the new sights.

I have a warning for Canadian retailers and the Canadian government at all levels. Watch out if you are planning on inflating prices and taxes. Shopping like this from the US is way too easy. Canada will have to make shopping in the US illegal, or put severe controls on cross-boarder shopping, if Canada wants to continue cranking up the cost of living. Consumers are going to find the best bang for their buck anyway they can, and from what I saw down in the USA, they want our money and they are making it very easy for us Canadians to go there and shop. With our dollar just around $0.05 below parity, the consumer’s power to spend outside of Canada is strong.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social economics | No Comments »

Counting Madness – Self-Righteous Resistors

November 21st, 2009 Thomasso

Human nature seems to be built upon some very basic principles like survival for food and shelter, natural selection and achieving the most for less under any circumstances, to mention a few. You will have those who by chance stumbled upon great wealth, or managed to screw enough people so that they are now the dominate forces in their societies. On the other hand you will have those who tried but never found their American Dream, and could never have had the “luck” to reach their dreams. To add some theory to this, I turn to the work of Email Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, who came up with the idea that when you have a breakdown of social norms, and when your personal control and environment breaks down, people then go into a state of “normlessness,” where they exhibit anyone of the following categories called modes of adaptation: conforming, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion (Williams & McShane: 2004).

When I first heard that we were going to start our annual inventory early this year, I was not the least bit worried because we now have the smaller work force (since the recession started), and our inventories  are so little compared to this time 2008 that counting on our part would take less than an afternoon. We were given about one weeks notice to prepare and start out counts. I had posted the information and started personally telling each worker as they came in what was going to be required of them for this year’s inventory count. A series of emails were sent, and some of the higher volume technicians were given phone calls to aid them with there procedures. With a lot less to count and fewer categories of inventory as compared to last year, I figured that this was going to be a flawless count.

As the numbers started roll in on Friday, I started making calls to the employees who I had already foreseen as being problematic and assisted them – like a mother wiping a child’s bib, holding their hands, reiterating what was needed from them, reassure them – just to get the job done. But no matter how much one tries, or prepares, there are going to be those who just can’t get it on the right track, and they continually fall by the wayside.

The majority of the employees are in the category of conforming. They know that these events take place and they offer their full unquestioned obedience to get the job done. Next are the innovation people who see this as an opportunity to do maintenance and clean-ups, while they sort out their equipment and inventory. They see that they have time offered to them for this and they take on a multitasking approach to it. Then we have a couple of workers who are the ritualist’s, who see this as a another job routine, and they blindly go through the motion of counting and sorting, but only putting in the minimum effort and time to get through it. Lastly, there are the dreaded rebellious types who, although they only represent less than two percent of the workforce, they cause ninety percent of the headaches.

Make no mistake that I am comparing criminological theory to the workplace. There are just too many similarities among these two groups to let this go unnoticed.

The inventory was completed, and done on time, but I ended up spending an eleven hour day trying to keep everything together, but still, I had to do some of it from home due to some stragglers being so late, and one not submitting until midnight. The last four hour stretch of Friday was spent talking on the phone, endlessly going over the inventory procedure until I notice that I was loosing my voice.

Source:

Williams & McShane (2004). Criminological theory. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Social Justice, Social economics | No Comments »

Letter to the Gammers: Don’t Over Spend Our Money!

November 7th, 2009 Thomasso

It looks like I’m a writer now. I mean, I’m writing for the general public on what I think are important issues, doing this for the sake of telling the world my thoughts. And yes, I’m doing it as a volunteer, and for some possible bonus marks for one of my classes. I thought that with all the hype going on with Vancouver this coming winter, a more sober look is needed with the Games. I think I lay out my concerns quite nicely here.

Current Opposition to the Olympic Games: Costs to the Taxpayer.

The media, such as CBC Radio in Vancouver, is busy with the 2010 Olympic
hype, but it is also allowing some voices to be heard who are in
opposition to it, mainly from the perspective of its costs and the
amount of taxes needed to pay for it. The Games could not have come a
worse time as the waning effects of the 2008 global meltdown are still
fresh in everyone minds. The worry is that with unemployment, market
uncertainty and huge government deficits growing, the Games may drive
government debt to unseen, or even unnecessary, levels never experienced
before.
Perhaps the greatest sense of opposition to the Olympic Games
are the cost associated with them such as the cost for the security and
policing, before and during the Games, which some estimates put them in
at over a billion dollars, according to CBC Radio in Vancouver on
November 2, 2009. With such a huge price tag, the government is
surely forced to dig deep into its pockets to pay for this. Ultimately
it is the taxpayer who will pay for this. This debt is going to be paid
through taxation, increases in the cost of services, user fees and
licensing, or met with reductions in government programs, but more than
likely all of these methods will be deployed at once to spread the
burden.
Added to this is the global down turn which is still gripping
the U.S., and is seriously effecting certain industries such as forestry
and tourism, areas of the economy that are vital to most of British
Columbia, according to CBC News. With unemployment still significantly
high in some regions of the province, the tax base is still weak causing
local governments to compound their debt loads to meet these
obligation.
The fear is that the money generated from the Olympic Games may
not be enough to balance the books and cover all the expenses that were
put into it after the event has finished. Based on information gathered
from past Games, almost all of these events have left past host cities
with debt that has either caused them to make drastic tax increases to
pay it down, or has stayed on the books for decades creating huge
deficits. An example of this is the thirty plus years that it took to
pay the $1.5 billion debt for the Olympic stadium in Montreal back in
1976, which CBC News announced back on December 19, 2006.
This then could be the greatest form of opposition to the games
from the perspective of those who live in British Columbia. Most would
welcome the Olympics, but for the property owners, workers and other
stakeholders, the burden of paying high taxes and leaving debt that
could be passed on to our grandchildren does raise some flags. Should we
be more prudent with our spending for what is essentially a two week
long party? The gamble here is that will the spin offs that are promised
by the Olympic Games be worth the risks that will give Vancouver and the
rest of the province a return on its investment.

Thomasso (Criminology)

This should, although I have not being told it has gone through final approval yet, be printed in the student paper at the University. I had some reservation about writing this becuase I know how much people really want the Games at their front door. I wanted to spell out that there is a down side, especially when the promised profits don’t appear, that we will being paying a huge prices as taxpayers to this debt. Am I anti-games? No, I’m a realist.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Social Justice, Social economics, University classes | 1 Comment »

Two Thumbs Up for Quebec and Its Charter on Thinness

October 17th, 2009 Thomasso

It appears that the Province of Quebec has gone and done what few other places would or had the will to do in North America, that is, setting out a new standard that will change the way the models and the fashion industry work. The unhealthy, abnormal skinny is out and normal is in. Although the charter is a voluntary one, I have to give the Quebec fashion industry much credit for taking the initiative to get as far as it has gone.

The main scope of the charter is to promote health, but it is a means to bring awareness to the public and members of the industries to take into consideration that the desired standards set out by the fashion industry are unattainable by just about everyone. The charter does not provide regulations and other forms of controls; it has no teeth, but is does bring a guiding light to those who work in the industry. This should also bring a measure of standard to the general public as well.

I compare this to the French Renaissance because the resistances to change will be hard felt among other parties in the fashion industry, mainly those who advertise and the vendors who market the garments and the consumer who has being carefully programmed over the decades. The fashion designers are mostly to blame too as what they see as the ideal person is often conjured up into a human body that is unnatural and unhealthy.

Then there is the standard of art, beauty and sexism. Like the renaissance, art became all the rage, so much so that fashion took on bazaar looks, and from that beauty became something artificial, something that strayed away from natural-normal look and lost its functionality in everyday living. Perhaps it was the sexuality of fashion that has kept in step throughout this era. Today the desired look is a 44 to 50 kg woman of average hight whose hips to waist ratio is something like 0.25.

I remember in my third year of University studying evolutionary psychology, the concept of sexuality and its role in how we survive, that natural selection may not be as hard-wired as we thought. Sexual attraction at a basic level serves to be both a tool for insuring that a species continues to advance and populate, and that only the most desirable offspring are made. The idea that the unhealthy members of the species do not continue to add back into the population so to insure that any negative genetic traits are kept out of the population is a mechanism to maintaining a healthy viable population. So why would modern man see an unhealthy women, the 44kg model, as a desirable sex symbol when she is considered in the evolutionary sense unable to reproduce? So culture must be the blame here, and this means we can change it.

The last point I want to make is that I see, as the underlying problem, are the corporations and marketing companies who make their living from this. Sex is the great marketing tool, and seeing something, tagging it to a sex symbol, has being the staple of advertising ever since the dawn of mass media. Today we see obesity as the extreme of undesirability and look to the other extreme of eating disorders, anorexia, as the most desirable, yet somewhere in the middle is normal. I think we all can conclude that what is projected out from the media is a far cry from normal, but we are lured into the images of the skinny model as the standard that we subconsciously value. I firmly believe that the media must project the true representation of society rather then a make belief world of fantasy

Please see: Quebec ‘charter’ fights use of skinny models, CBC.ca News World, October 16, 2009.

Posted in General, Social economics | No Comments »

May the Good Times Start to Roll

October 2nd, 2009 Thomasso

I am happy to report that the economic downturn is starting to level out and I could be starting to see a positive spin for a change. Regardless of what the media says, “Tom’s true indicator of the economic climate is in his wallet.” So far the cash flow has never been disrupted, but there were some scares over the last twelve months that, thankfully, never played out. Still, the cost crunching are still in effect as run-a-way inflation is still a very real possibility to deal with in the future.

In the balance of it all, the company that I work for seems to be on the rebound. Despite all the set backs and hits to the credit industry, there was a hiring spike last week as three former employees were repatriated back into the payroll. Oddly enough however, all the re-hires are occupying different position from their previous ventures.

I must also stress too that the current layout of company operations are completely different than from before the meltdown. The current working environment has completely changed from when I was hired into at the beginning of my time with this company. Money is spent differently, work is allocated at a more meticulous means and middle management is completely decimated.

I suspect that once we return back to the previous level of economic growth we will also return back to the old ways of doing business. Already one manager wants to spend a considerable amount of money rebuilding inventories up so that any new accounts will not have any delays with job start-ups. The risk is that we may not be in the full glory of economic utopia, and the saw-tooth business cycle could bite us with another downturn. No one wants to be stuck with a warehouse full of inventory that is not moving, or over priced—under valued.

In the mean time life is looking up and a modest recovery seems likely. Now if we can keep the pendulum swinging farther then maybe the winter season will be a cheery one too.

Posted in General, Social economics | 1 Comment »

Tom’s Two Rants and a Vent Post, Really I am Happy

September 11th, 2009 Thomasso

I guess time sort of got away on me there. I was going to finish my post, the second part to the “One Box to Many,” that I wrote three weeks ago, but I got tied up with the start of the fall semester and a unexpected serge at work.

I have a couple of vents I want to get off my chest. The first has to do with federal politics. I am not a big fan of the Liberals, nor the Conservatives. In fact, I see any right wing government as a social detriment to everyone. Hey, this is my opinion, and I am sorry if you do not agree, but I just do not trust them. My vent comes from the ads that are popping up on the airwaves. I do not care if there is another election, I just do not want to suffer through more right wing mud slinging and political propaganda.  Damn it, the vehicle ads are enough to wreck a good show on the TV anyway, we do not need added distractions. Please stop it.

People think Fort Langley is turning into a police state. No, that is not true. The criminals who are getting caught are because neighbours are starting to take a vested interest in their own community now. From the guy who passed out on the bench only metres from the pub, to the young woman who threw a beer bottle that smashed on the road on Glover, are probably wondering why they were confronted with a COP (constable on patrol) in mere seconds. Simple, folks phoned and complained about you. So rather having police patrolling 24/7, people are taking up the cause. I say “good for you” for doing that. How else are crimes like vandalism and drunkenness going to be nipped in the butt if everyone turns a blind eye? Go get them Fort Langley!

The School Boards and the bad old BC Government. I cannot say there was not any warning on this one. Yes, we are in a economic crunch, and everyone is suffering. But we like our roads, schools and courts to run. Someone has to pay for that. With so many unemployed, and other revenue lost due to extreme cutbacks by the consumers, the deficit was predictably going to hit records numbers. Even a government that was facing an election could not hide that one. Sure they “low balled” the numbers, but all of us should have known that know one could have really said they did not see that coming. The money must flow, so if you do not have it, well, at least there are still some support system still in place to help you out. But I like the guy in Langley City who will not fork out the $25.00 for his Son’s school gym swag. That is one way of dealing with it. I must keep an eye on that story as it progresses; it could be big.

There, venting all done now. I feel great. Summer almost done—must enjoy!

The photo was done with POV-Ray and Kpov Modeler (KDE), and edited with the GIMP.

Posted in Diatribe, General, Homework and deadlines, Humour, Photographs, Social Justice, Social economics | 1 Comment »

Contrast between A and B: A Philosophical Examination of Marxism in 2008 (Part 3)

September 4th, 2009 Thomasso

The final chapter in my essay on Marxism. Before you read this story I want to stress that I deliberately intended to create a perfect balance between two sides of the same world. You may see this story as the most unrealistic out of the three, but I tried to draw two distinct differences between the rich and poor so that they are believable in some sense. We are all a product of our life experiences, and we are all different, coming form different backgrounds and points of origin, so no two persons are alike. There will always be the advantaged and the disadvantaged, but perhaps we can change the way we look at this spectrum and begin to better understand the different variations within our social structures, so not to discriminate between the two.

A woman steps out of her car and carries a bag that contains some sundry items that she had just purchased. She pulls out her key from the door lock and presses the car alarm, and a very short burst of sound from the horn reverberates across the parking lot compound. She presses another button on her key chain and the sounds of an electric motor and metal clanging against each other resonates from just a head of her, it is the gate opening in to the atrium of the apartment building she lives in. She walks across a granite polished floor that leads up to a large thick glass door of which she enters her personal identification number on a wall mounted console and then swipes her card across it. A quick buzzing sound followed by a pronounced click is made just before the door opens.

She enters the hallway leading towards the elevator. Mounted in every corner of every wall are video cameras, hidden within black glass like domes, strategically placed so that no area is out of view. She steps into the elevator, and before she can press the button for her floor, she swipes her card across the number pad mounted on the control panel, and then the doors swiftly closes shut from each side. Smoothly the elevator rises up to her floor and then a soft tone sounds just before the doors open. As she reaches her apartment door, she holds the card between her teeth while she takes out a set of keys from her purse. The door also has a card-locking device that requires her to not only to swipe the face plate with, but she must also insert two separate keys before the door unlocks and opens. Finely she enters her apartment.

Kicking her shoes off in the cloakroom, she walks into the kitchen and pours herself a glass of red wine. She then relaxes on the couch in the living room. She grabs the remote control that is sitting on the glass coffee table and presses a few buttons that automatically draws the curtains open from along the patio window exposing a panoramic view of the city below. She sips her wine as she looks at the thousands of lights twinkling in the black.

Unbeknownst to the woman up in the apartment building, there is a vagrant who slips and falls in the back alley across the street. He falls on his chest with his hands pressed in front of him trying to cushion the fall. The sounds of laughter from two young men can be heard behind him as they taunt and spit, then one of them gives the vagrant one last kick before they run off with his wallet and wristwatch. The vagrant tries to get up from off the ground but the pain is too much so he rests, but he manages to roll over closer to the brick wall to hide in the dark.

As the vagrant looks on ward as two people enter the alley, a prostitute and her pimp. The young woman, barley able to walk in her high heal shoes, is yelling at the man who is holding one of her arms, pulling her further down into the dead end street. She tries to free herself, but the man pushes her into a large metal garbage bin and demands money from her. She continues to resist, claiming that she has no money. After two more attempts of demanding money by the man, he pushes her down onto the ground and her head hits the bottom step of a metal stairwell. He bends down towards her as she lays motionless and he puts his hand under her head and feels the warm wet blood from her hair through his fingers. For a split second he looks in shock, scared and petrified. Then he dashes upwards and runs off towards the lighted street.

The vagrant, to weak to move, saw the whole murder, but he can’t call for help. Hours go by before someone reaches down to see if he is alive. The sky is blue now and the birds can be heard up in the sky. A voice yells to go and get a blanket. Then, the sky turns to black as the blanket is laid over his head. The police officer notes how bad the crime rate is getting, and that it is getting out of control. The other voice agrees, and the vagrant’s body is lifted onto a stretcher and then the two men carry it into the van.

Obviously I wanted to draw the distinction between two places at the same moment. But, I also wanted to view the contrast between the protected and unprotected, and how the economic classes play at this sense of security. Like what Marx saw in his social theory, there is a distinct difference between these two realities, the rich living in a gated community that is totally isolated from the rest of the world, while the poor live in a less secured world, where they must endure a life style that is fraught with hardship and have access to less opportunities.

I wanted to go deeper and look at social attitudes. There is a predetermine image of how we view these two economic classes. I could have easily made the woman a evil murderer, but that would not have made the story believable. Nor if I made the vagrant a woman, the story would have taken on a very different slant, as I am sure the reader would take a more critical look at her instead of the character being a man. Through our culture we are preprogrammed, or wired, to think in these terms and breaking this thinking pattern is very hard to do. At a very early age we are taught that certain types of people do particular types of things, this concept we call stereotyping. How do you de-program ones self?

Posted in Criminology, General, Social Justice, Social economics | No Comments »

Wheat and Bars: A Philosophical Examination of Marxism in 2008 (Part 2)

September 1st, 2009 Thomasso

This was part of an essay I wrote back in Fall of 2008 on the concepts of Marxism and how it contrast with today’s ideologies of modern Canadian lifestyles. This analogy was written well before the economic collapse of the latter half of that year and proves that there was enough forecasters during that time to properly estimate that an economic disaster was eminent. The main thesis was on ethics and professional conduct, although many portions of the assay are omitted, the general tone of the it was to compare the clashes in thinking between the left and right and to see if social harmony was possible without any compromise.

About a five minute drive outside of town was the Smith’s farm, a 100 acer plot of land that had some of the most suited agricultural space in the valley. Nearly all of it was on flat well irrigated land with the river running along it’s northern edge, and gentle rolling hills along the Eastern side. The farm had been part of the same family for five generations, and was well known with its produce sold at the local markets. During the first settlers, the town nearest to the farm was just a small village consisting of a few buildings and a dozen homes. The road at the time was nothing more than just a trail, big enough for a horse drawn wagon to move the various food crops to market with.

Over the years the population of the town grew, at first a few hundred, but in the last decade it surpassed 5000 residence. Land was a scares commodity as the town lay between the river and the steep hills to the South, and a narrow strip of land along the river that has the railway running along it. The rest of the valley grew in population as the rewards of the bountiful natural resources and the rise of industrialization spread, the farms and other outlying land gave way to urban sprawl, roads and industrial parks. It was clear that land that once was used for agriculture was now prime real estate for new subdivisions and commercial uses.

The farm land was expropriated to make way for a multi lane express way that would aid commuters with a shorter distance from the main highway to the metropolitan region along the valley. With only a fifth of the land that was allocated for the construction of the highway, the remainder of the property became municipal land, part of which was used as a permanent maintenance site for road crews to service the highway year round. The rest of the land stayed vacant.

The land was forgotten about for several years as road, commercial and housing construction reach it completion during the boom period. All that remained as undeveloped land from the farm was this sizeable piece of property, but its accessibility was what made it unattractive because of its proximity to the newly built highway for residential use. Industrial businesses could not use it because it lay beside the watershed, and commercial uses was very restricted due to the many environmental impact provisions the various levels of government put in place.

After a series of back room discussions, each level of government had decided that this parcel of land would be very well suited for a prison. The motion to have a multi use correctional facility was quickly adopted by the municipality as the federal government was going to add several hundred million dollars into the local economy, such as construction jobs and aid local suppliers. Many long term jobs would be added as well. The added boon to the service industry would add an increase of business for the general day to day operations of the prison too within the community.

The praises of the government were instead met with protests and opposition as a movement quickly developed to have the prison relocated. “Not in my back yard,” cries rang out over the media, on the streets and at every water-cooler throughout the community, as it seems that none of the residence wanted it near them.

Through a series of signed decelerations and land transfers that had occurred within the last decade, little did the municipality know that once the major highway was built, this now designated the land usage as part of the regional government’s responsibility; and as such, the local community had very little to  say with the wishes of the higher government as far as federal services goes. The prison was long finished before the bureaucracy allowed for the start of the hearings to take place on the matter. The community’s voting power was to little to late before anyone could do anything about it, as the prison was seen as a vital service for the region.

Like both the first post from August 30, “One Box To Many,” and this one, “Wheat to Bars,”  these are examples of how we coexists within the social setting but our thirst for personal control is not as what we claim it to be. The first story looked at how business and labour tried to advance itself forward, but until the balance shifted, as in this case, lack of revenue for resources, the eventual collapse of the economic cycle took hold. This is not to say that it completely collapsed into oblivion, but that it slowed until market demands restarted itself. In this post the story is about how land is seemingly controlled by more than one vested stakeholder. Here, farm land lost its value as its agricultural usefulness made way for demands of urban sprawl, and this was taken away, usually in the form of a changing tax-base, or land expropriation, to make way for the expanding communities and population growth.

Although I wrote these stories as a work of fiction, they are based on a collection of actual events that have happened in the course of my life time. Telling stories that try to weave the threads of a certain perspective is far more complex that I originally thought. Because of this I see Marxism as an interesting ideological perspective in that it takes classism to a very basic level: rich versus poor, employer versus employee, landlord versus tenant, but nothing is as black and white in a constantly changing society moving theough time. Although Marxism is useful in comparing the contrasts of our society, in Canada it is more difficult to fully apply it to a macro view because  of our complex and interdependent society, and even at a micro view you miss some of the vital pieces needed to explain the whole story. You just cannot view the employer and employee as one side being more beneficial than the other without looking at the full scope of the market economy and social implications that are tied to each other. Nor could you see the land owner and the tenant as one being more disadvantaged over the other until you examine the real estate markets, taxation and population migration of workers throughout the country over time.

Added: Next post I will talk more about the conclution of the stary, “One Box To Many,” and see if I can add a cliff hanger ending to it. This was not part of my origonal essay, but something for my sister, J.M., who just celebrated her birthday. I still have the third story from my essay, but it deals more with the criminal asspects of today as compared to when Carl Marx was alive, and doesn’t deal with the economy.

Posted in Criminology, General, Social Justice, Social economics | 1 Comment »

One Box to Many: A Philosophical Examination of Marxism in 2008

August 29th, 2009 Thomasso

This was part of an essay I wrote back in Fall of 2008 on the concepts of Marxism and how it contrast with today’s ideologies of modern Canadian lifestyles. This analogy was written well before the economic collapse of the latter half of that year and proves that there was enough forecasters during that time to properly estimate that an economic disaster was eminent. The main thesis was on ethics and professional conduct, although many portions of the assay are omitted, the general tone of the it was to compare the clashes in thinking between the left and right and to see if social harmony was possible without any compromise.

Let me tell you a story about a man, a box, and two men who claimed that everything was theirs. Picture if you will, a dark and dusty factory floor that was all but vacant, abandon, emptied of its former occupants. Large machines sit motionless with dust and cobwebs stretched from every protruding piece. One lamp from the ceiling is all that lights the big empty room, and painted covered windows which only lets in tiny slivers of light from the out side that can be seen as bright rays shooting through the dust onto the floor. In the middle of this room is a man working away building a wooden box, one about the size of crate, so that he can put some of the machinery into it and ship it off to a distant land where it will work once again making merchandise for another factory.

At one end of the factory, in a small room with a desk, sits a fat man who is busy pushing buttons on his adding machine, tallying up all of the numbers of items that the factory produced that day, and converting it into money, his profits. He stops for a brief moment and pulls out a cigar, lights it, and takes a few hardy puffs from it, then bites down on it between his teeth and continues tapping away on the keys of the adding machine. He is happy. He makes humming sounds of a happy melody, and his eyes beam with positive enthusiasm the longer the ribbon of paper becomes from the adding machine.

At the other end of the factory in another room that shares several desks, sit a man in a black suit at the middle desk, and he is happy, as he hums a happy song. He is writing a list onto a writing pad. He grabs the desk lamp to repositions the light so that is now shining right over top of the paper. He opens a drawer from in front of the desk and pulls out a yellow file-folder from it and lays it squarely on the desk over top of the writing pad. He unfolds the file folder and pulls out several printed documents that have rows and columns of numbers and words on them. He pulls out a single sheet from the folder and then puts the yellow file folder back in the drawer. He then starts writing again, copying from the paper onto his writing pad, humming even louder with happiness with each pen stroke.

The wooden box is almost compete as the last few nails are hammered into it. The factory worker checks to see if all the corners are square and that no panel of wood is loose or unfastened from the wooden frame is sits on. With his rough firm hands he feels the texture of the wood by gliding his palms over the surface, a sign of his craftsmanship and experience. The wooden box is sound and ready for its purpose by its creator.

Both doors opened simultaneously from each office at each end of the factory, and both men walk towards where the factory worker who has build the crate is sitting. They both stopped, standing opposite each other staring at the wooden crate, the fat man with his ribbon of paper from the adding machine, and the man with the black suit holding his writing pad and pen. The factory worker puts down his tools and wipes the sweat from his forehead with a white cloth that he keeps in his back pants pocket.

Both the fat man and the man with the black suit turn to the worker and begin to tell him what they would like placed into the crate, and where it is to be shipped off to. The worker informs them both that all of the items will not fit into the crate, and that it would be impossible for the shipping company to deliver the same crate to two different locations.

The worker sits in silence as the two men walk back to their respected sides of the factory and the sounds of their doors slamming reverberate throughout the building. There in the middle of the factory floor sits the crate after the worker has gone, taking all of his tools.

There was only enough money to pay the worker and to purchase enough materials to complete only one crate and have it built. Because there was such a demand for the worker, the crate and the means to ship it, both the fat man and the man with the black suit had to fill their orders in order to make enough profit to pay for them all.

Next post I will add part 2 to this because I incorporated a series of reasons why I compared this to the economic collapse of 2008.

Posted in Criminology, General, Social Justice, Social economics | 2 Comments »