Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
i'm no seamstress….
but i did manage to turn this beautiful piece of brocade:
into something resembling a tablecloth for the small table in the kitchen:
finished it today – now onto the curtains for my bedroom…..
match (sketch)
she strikes the match against the rasp on the cardboard cover, bringing the flame up towards the cigarette, united in a plume of smoke before she shakes her hand to drop the cardboard stick onto the sidewalk. feet moving, away from the scene, away from the sounds of sirens directed towards this block. she tries to scrub her mind of what she has just seen, bloated with blood and tires slick against rainy pavement – two moments of reaction, to realize the man isn’t getting up again, and to get as far the hell away before the police show up and she is forced to relive it a hundred times in statements and courtrooms and anecdotes.
traffic has slowed to a crawl in both directions on the humming street, either those impeded because of the body sprawling limbs on the ground, or those slowing to get a glimpse before the clean-up crew comes. she turns away from them, left into the alleyway two blocks south, takes a few steps into the concrete corridor, and leans her back against the mossy brick of a supportive building. knees soft, cheeks flushed, she takes a drag off the cigarette, shielding it from the wet to make it last until the filter. here is safe for a moment, smoking and looking up at grey sky overhead moving the shapes of rain, the lip of the roof across from hers, the siren-song dulled in the distance, perhaps now arrived at the intersection. but safe will soon give way to a throng of suits and reality on the sidewalk six feet away. once the cigarette is finished, she knows this moment will have to be reconciled with all the others, and so she dawdles with it as long as possible.
she wishes she could plug her mind or shut it, so what has just happened in front of her will not seep back in. a flame shook and put out, extinguished in the damp streets of november. a cigarette she did not need.
cold water and house paint
before i get into my essay of the day (word today is: match), i need to brag a little about my badass accomplishments over the weekend.
first off – i finally got my kayaking basics course completed – after having it cancelled on me twice – the scrd went ahead with this weekend anyways despite the low number of participants (3). although i have paddled a little bit before, it has always been without any knowledge of different strokes or any safety procedures. this course gave a basic run-down and at the end we did two types of rescues – assisted and solo. for the assisted, we had to be rescued by someone else and then rescue another person, and of course solo, as it implies, consists of getting oneself back into the boat without outside help. luckily the weather wasn’t as bad as predicted – but ocean-swimming in late-october is not for the faint of heart! i was the only partipant to do both the assisted and solo rescue – the other two women were too cold/tired for the solo (though i found it much easier than the assisted). i feel a hell of a lot more confident now about kayaking on my own then i did before – and a lot more keen to get my own boat (something else to save up for).
then on sunday – along with two other people (jon and sean from the ffa), i helped to paint the whole interior of sean & michelle’s new house in sechelt (it was primed on the saturday) – which took all day and sure felt like a major accomplishment. i was beat by the end of it – but really happy to be able to help my friends to save some money on the building of their house by providing a little of the labour. it looks really great, and on its way to being finished for the end date of november 16th – i’m really excited for them as i think it’s going to be gorgeous when all finished.
besides that, i went to a party where i knew no one (except the hosts) and was the only person there without a partner or a child. it was a good test of my self-confidence, and i met a bunch of sunshine coast school teachers who had just come back from voting on the return to work decision which made for lots of good anti-government talk. sunday night i caught up with duane from the ffa since i am feeling like a bad friend – i haven’t even been to see him and his partner since they had their twins in the spring, and since that time both of his parents have passed away (which i just found out) as well – so we had a *long* catch-up conversation which was really past due, and i’ve arranged a day to go and visit the family in a couple of weeks.
and if you’re wondering (which you might be with all this talk of ffa hanging-out) – it looks like we might be playing a show december 2nd in vancouver. as you might recognize – we aren’t playing many shows these days – so you’ll want to come out for some crazy dancing if your jones tells you to. there’s no guarantee we’ll be playing again anytime soon. more details on that when i confirm them.
hope (essay)
the last statement i made to gerald (an ex from long ago), in ocean falls this summer was, “i don’t believe in hope,” and then the ferry horn sounded and i had to run down the hill to get on before it sailed away. i felt uneasy for days, leaving a conversation at that supposedly bleak place seemed a bad omen of something – particularly because i delivered my parting line in a town of 35 residents, its structures crumbling back into the earth amidst a patchwork of lush rainforest and clearcuts. the boarded up hotel, the eyeless hospital windows, the junk museum set up in the old co-op grocery store – a scene both hopeful and hopeless, which is often how i see the world, one sentiment negating the other. perhaps this is what i meant to say, or maybe it was just that “hope” seems like a difficult (if not untenable) place to situate our energy.
we were talking about peak oil, unfettered development and the collapse of land and ocean resources at the time. i’m not sure who initiated the conversation – likely me because i had just read derrick jensen’s yet-to-be-released book, Endgame and was thinking through the implications of environmental degradation and civilization’s reliance on shrinking resources. it was here that gerald said “you can always hope that people start making the right choices and consume less” to which i made my reply. and of course – he is right – i can make a million wishes, which is all that hopes are, and pin my energies there. or (and this is what i was getting at in my sharp response) – i can take action on those leverage points of change where i find them. my reaction to him, was really a reaction to the society that throws its hands up and “hopes for the best” rather than taking steps to make real changes.
but of course it is not true that i don’t have hopes or wishes or dreams; it is false to say “i don’t believe in hope” except as a retort in a conversation with an ex who has always been a riddle to me. there are things i want, that i can’t manifest by my physical actions in the immediate – which require some wishing and positive thinking just to keep them alive as dreams and desires. this is a type of hope, albeit one without expectation of fulfillment, which really just goes back to one state cancelling out the other (a hopeless hope).
i suppose i bristle at the word “hope” because it feels too much like saying – “there is nothing i can do about this anyway except pray” – and giving up so much agency, while our life-support systems of air and water and plants are slowly poisoned around us and by our actions as a collective body seems a bit disingenous to me. it’s the avoidance factor that makes me recoil and then react – and i suppose that is what i did mean in my parting statement to an ex last july in a tiny central coast village. looking back at it, i am pretty sure it was not a bad omen of anything.
wins and losses in the class struggle
it looks like the teachers are going to come off the picket lines today following an announcement that both sides are willing to accept ready’s arbitration recommendations – which doesn’t mean they have an agreement yet, but that there is a framework within which to negotiate on items such as class-size, teacher-on-call wage increases, and an increase in education funding overall for this and next fiscal year. the next few weeks will see negotiators sit back down to the table and hammer out the finer points to take to the teachers for a vote. we’ll see what kindof support it actually has at that point.
rarely in a labour struggle is there a clear victory at the end for the union movement – and although there are often clear losses – most resolutions involve a little bit of both. since i have been watching this dispute like a soap opera over the last two weeks (hand-wringing – what will happen on tomorrow’s episode?), i of course have an opinion on this resolution and where i think the bctf and labour movement has won or lost points in this struggle. while it is too early to know what a final agreement will look like, i think that overall the teachers will be able to declare a victory, despite there being little chance of across-the-board wage increases.
so first of all on the wins:
because the government underestimated the teachers, and their willingness to break the law, the bctf came out in a strategically strong position with both committed members and public support. as cupe workers joined onside to help escalate the actions across the province, support only grew among the public, and the government’s plea for people to “obey the law” rang hollow (particularly when delivered by government officials who have repeatedly refused to honour international labour law and freely-bargained contracts). a low-point for the government was definitely the moment education minister, shirley bond encouraged teachers to scab on each other – a cry that went unheeded in a climate of bctf militancy and member-solidarity. bond clearly misread the union-supporting public in bc which is larger than the liberals would like to admit. all of this means the union movement came out looking stronger, while support for the government weakened.
this puts unionized workers in a better position overall in bc because it is unlikely that after this government embarassment, they will be so quick to enact bullying legislation in the future. the bcgeu and other negotiating unions may reap benefits from this sooner rather than later as they head into their contract sessions in the new year. in addition, the willingness of people to take action and stick together has provided a living demonstration of the power of democratic unionism (the bctf is much more democratic than many other unions i could mention), and the ability to make change by physically defying that which is unjust.
in addition to all of the above, fractures inside the bc federation of labour that have become apparent over the last two weeks, may provide an opening to challenge the weak leadership of jim sinclair – which if played right, could result in a win for the more militant forces within the bcfed. that of course is an open question until next november’s convention where the leaders of the fed are elected.
unfortunately, it would be a bit too pollyanna-ish to just focus on the wins without also noting apparent and probable losses overall:
i think the biggest problem from the labour movement perspective was weak overall leadership. while jinny simms (bctf president) shone in the media and was exulted by her membership, bcfed leader jim sinclair got weaker by the day, and by the end the fed was disavowing cupe rallies scheduled for today as “inappropriate”. this was a disappointing repeat performance of the same inept and shoddy leadership we saw during the heu “illegal” action 16 months ago – the only difference being this time that jinny simms was able to resist it given her broad public support, whereas fred muesen (heu president) did not enjoy the same public persona or suppport during the heu actions. this allowed the bctf (with the support of cupe) to continue on with their strike despite the fact it is very likely sinclair and the fed were arguing with them to shut it down. of course, i am speculating here, but the internal dynamics as i have glimpsed them give me some idea this is a likely scenario.
as a result of this fracture in the fed (which i blame on sinclair and the unions who left the bctf out to dry including my own) the labour movement once again lost the opportunity to truly hold the government accountable for its heedless social and economic policies by taking general strike action. as working people we have a single mechanism at our disposal for resisting injustice and cruelty on a mass scale – which is to withdraw our labour until our demands are met. yet our leadership seems loathe to bring us to it, even when our members are eager to go. once again, we have been let down by those we elected to represent us at the union table – and i am hopeful there may be a serious contender against sinclair the next time around to take the fed in a more militant direction. with a government like the bc libs, this is no time for weak knees – our future as a society is at stake with every program that is cut and every wage that is frozen – and without opposition that backs up what it says with action, the government will continue to steam-roller us.
i think the ndp similiarly did not capitalize on or support the mobilizations for fear of being seen as too close to labour. it is a shame when the party of the workers, disavows itself from the active organizations of the working class – but of course, not a surprise given the history of social democracy and the debates currently going on in the ndp about its new direction. with more support from both labour and the ndp, i really do believe that we would be looking at a much clearer victory in the teachers’ dispute this morning than we currently are.
but despite these things, it needs to be said, although teachers are not going back with across-the-board increases in wages or all their demands met – they should be able to return with the dignity of having fought against and moved the government into a more tenable position. without this strike, the teachers would have gained absolutely nothing at all, and their rights to bargain would have eroded that much more while acquiescing to unjust legislation. as it is, they have a framework within which to start, and i’m optimistic they have frightened the government just enough to ensure that other public sector unions will not have such a hard time in future negotiations.
i recognize it is with reluctance teachers are being asked to support these recommendations – and as a union activist, i would much rather see a general strike go into effect until their demands are met – but given the problematic leadership in the bc labour movement as a whole – teachers have to recognize that they have acted in the most honourable, militant and unified way possible. although i am ashamed of my union leadership, i am still proud to be a member of the rank and file and am happy to make common cause those union sisters and brothers who have been on the frontlines supporting the teachers and confronting this government.
Red Cedar 