GAMBLING,GAMING, AND GOING BROKE

GAMBLING, GAMING, AND GOING BROKE

How have so many wonderful community programs become lovers of gambling? Well, maybe not loving gambling, but tolerating it? For the money, of course. But how is it that serious social needs like crime prevention, senior programs, youth programs, animal shelters, arts, health foundations, and many other social programs came to be dependent upon gambling? Most of us know by now that gambling is a serious health risk for a significant number of people, one that too often leaves them destitute and suicidal. And it is upon this suffering and death of some of our members that we as communities have been made to accept from a government that promised not to expand gambling, to bringing in the most addictive and insidious form of gambling…internet gambling.

The Campbell government operates like a dope pusher in the matter of gambling. First, they expose citizens concerned about the health of their communities to a small easy fix of a bit of money for social programs derived from restricted gambling with the promise of more to come. Later, a little more money from a little wider expansion of gambling. Even later, more gambling money for community programs from a continuous expansion of gambling until there is a steady stream of money for community programs from an all out gambling industry with the Campbell government in tow. Finally, the time arises when communities are so dependent on gambling money that citizens can no longer protest or even debate the moral implications of gambling. How can we with so many community programs now riding on this flow of money? But now that the Campbell government is cutting out all (or mostly all) of the programs that benefit from gambling, it does demonstrate how little the members of this government care for citizens.

But if these cuts hold, then it’s a good time to shove Gordon Campbell’s slot machines in his face. As the provincial government now gets all (mostly all) the benefits from gambling then let them wear the shame of coercing communities into accepting gambling money as being healthy and legitimate when in reality they know, and once actually said so, that funds from gambling have always been tainted money because of the lives it destroys. We pay taxes for our social programs, for health and education that includes art, seniors and children’s centres, and crime prevention. We want all of these things and we should have them, with clean money, with tax money, our own money, and we want the Campbell government to stop giving our tax money away to the biggest, sickest, slickest gamblers in town who are gambling non-stop, not only with our money, but with our natural resources. Who am I talking about specifically? Olympic promoters come to mind? Betty Krawczyk

THE BIRD, GUILT GRAVY, AND HOPE

If we had a bird for Thanksgiving dinner, chances are we washed it down with a gravy of guilt that wasn’t present in my day. Now, not only do we have to think about the suffering of factory birds, we have to fret and wonder why so many earth people have little to eat or even anything at all. It’s true that many people were cash poor when I was growing up, (80 odd years ago) but most people still lived outside the big cities and could scratch out enough food on small plots to keep families reasonably well fed. With organic meat and vegetables. Certifiably organic. That was before chemicals became king. That was before corporations became persons.
I am thankful for the Constitution of Canada. The Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And even in the face of the ultra conservative Supreme Court of British Columbia and a privatizing crazed premier, The Constitution of Canada is at least a guide to a better, fairer way of governing ourselves. And because BC is becoming a harsh, even barbaric place with practically every man, woman and child scrambling for substance while choking on shredded social cut backs, that doesn’t mean this is the earthly norm. Or the norm for other countries, localities, world bodies, or even other provinces in Canada. I don’t think there are any other provincial leaders trying to incite people poverty (it is a war), and bust the back of health care all with a few secret cabinet meetings. And with unabashed gusto. It’s amazing. It’s shock and awe. But the Canadian Constitution is still there. The Charter still lives as much as the conservative judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and Gordon Campbell wishes it didn’t. There is hope. Even the judicial decisions that declare that corporations have the right to act as persons without responsibilities to anyone but their share holders and who, by law, can be sued if they don’t make money, more money, and even more money, regardless of environmental destructions, is under attack. I think we are headed into a new area. Let’s all be thankful today and tomorrow for the Constitution of Canada.

BOUNTIFUL AND BOMBINGS

Bountiful and Bombings

What have these two news items in common? Our BC Supreme Court staying the charges of polygamy against the two Bountiful religious leaders, Winston Blackmore and James Oler on Sept. 22, and the announcement of the bombing of yet another school for girls in Pakistan ( there have been roughly thirty such bombings of schools in and around the Swat Valley-CNN.com) on Sept. 23?
Events in common? Well, let us consider. First, the dismissal of charges of Polygamy against the two religious leaders in Bountiful who keep multiple wives (27 and counting for one of the accused); never mind the practicality of accomplishing such a feat, the fact remains that it’s unlawful. POLYGAMY IS AGAINST THE LAW. IT’S A FEDERAL LAW. IT SAYS SO IN THE CRIMINAL CODE. THE CRIMINAL CODE RULES THE COUNTRY OF CANADA. Except in British Columbia. In BC judges make decisions that are, in my opinion, unlawful. And they are aided and abetted by the Attorney Generals and by government lawyers (Crown Council) who are in my opinion mostly a gutless bunch. They only like to bet on a sure thing i.e. putting away environmental protesters and the like for long prison sentences. BC Supreme Court Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein said that Wally Oppal (then Attorney General) should have not shopped around for a second prosecutor when the first one refused to lay charges. Why the refusal? Because the charges might not pass a constitutional challenge from the Supreme Court of Canada on the grounds of freedom of religion.
Well, what was Wally Oppal to do except look for another prosecutor? The only way to know whether or not charges will pass a constitutional challenge is to present the case. But why is it that nobody in the legal profession or the Attorney General’s office will present the case of Bountiful polygamists to the Supreme Court of Canada? Does the claim of religion actually countenance breaking the law? The codified law of Canada? Evidentially yes, when the religion embraces the dictates that very young women (girls, actually) should be forcibly given over sexually to old and middle aged men. There must be something titillating abut this to old and middle aged men in law and government or else polygamy would have been treated like any other broken codified law long ago. In spite of the fact that more women judges are sitting on the bench the court is an extremely masculine place, run by men. And on the other side of the world religious leaders are preaching that girl’s schools will continue to be bombed because educating girls is un-Islamic and against religion. Religion, huh? What an all encompassing way to keep girls ignorant and sexually accessible and beyond the powers of the court to intervene. And beyond the powers of mothers to protect their daughters. In my opinion, women should heed these two religious extremes because the results have a way of nesting on our own doorsteps. Women in Ontario narrowly escaped a provincial acceptance of Sharia law a couple of years ago and it was Muslim women who understood what this would have meant and who fought fiercely against it. And won. We should all be so vigilant.
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