Brantford, ON
“Cars are the dominant creatures, humans are just the servants,” said Tim Falconer, author of “A Road Trip through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile.” Our world in the 21st century has been built around the vehicle. From conception in the “back seat” to being carried away by the Hurst, our lives are based around the vehicle.
Before the automobile, horse and carriage were primary means of transportation. According to Falconer, “When the vehicle was invented, people believed the car was the utopia.” Little did they know that the vehicle was going to create a major demise in world history.
Looking back, we can all remember the ultimate Henry Ford. Ford introduced his revolutionary Model T in 1908. To meet growing demand, Ford’s company opened a large factory at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910. Here, Ford combined his own ideas with those of the famous Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s successful “Scientific Management.” “Scientific Management” combined precession, manufacturing, standardized and interchangeable parts, and division of labour. Workers remained in place, adding one component to each automobile as it moved down the line, and essentially moved down the road through history.
But with ups and downs in the economy including job cuts, technology breakthroughs, the oil crisis, and the major recession taking place in the United States, the question posed is, how much does our economy actually depend on the automobile?
According to economist Jim Stanford in the Research Department of the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union, “The economy depends on the auto industry that makes about 120 000 jobs for people in Canada today, both directly and indirectly. From the donut shop to the dry cleaners, everything depends on the automotive tax dollar. Economists estimate that for every job in a major auto facility, there are about 7.5 jobs in total that depend on that job.”
On the other hand, Jeff Hermer, a group leader for the Toyota plant in Kitchener Ontario explains, “A lot of people have quit buying vehicles because of the ongoing highs and lows of gas prices. The small man now is getting put out.”
The United States auto industry, once the cornerstone of the U.S economy, has been brought to its knees, along with the high-paying and secure jobs it once supplied. According to Carlo Basilone from The Real News Network, “U.S auto sales plunged in June to a 15-year low as consumers shunned pick up trucks and large SUVs with the high price of gasoline. Ford plans to transform three American truck plants to build small cars originally developed for European markets.”
With the low demand of automobiles, comes striking evidence of job cuts. “We are seeing a lot of job loss with 400 000 jobs cut since 2002. This reflects globalization and that is why many communities are suffering,” stated Stanford.
According to Real News, General Motors in the United States eliminated half of its hourly workforce since 2004, from 106 911 to 55 000 this year, while in Canada more than 30 000 auto jobs have been lost since 2001.
A major factor to consider is technology growth and the expansion of machinery and robots. According to Richard Sennett in his book “The Culture of the New Capitalism,” as automation spreads, the field of fixed human skills shrinks. Today it’s taken for granted. Here again appears the idealized new self: an individual constantly learning new skills, changing his or her ‘knowledge basis.’ In reality that ideal is driven by the necessity of keeping ahead of the machine.”
On the contrary, Jim Stanford states, “Technology is not taking over. It has been carrying on for hundreds of years. You can create jobs as you grow forward.” For Jeff Hermer this is not what is taking place, “Technology will take over to a certain extent. Technology has replaced people with robots already in my plant, especially in the welding and paint shops.”
According to CTV news, the Federal government assistance for the auto industry would not include a short-term cash infusion, such as the proposed $25 billion bailout the U.S Congress is debating for American car manufacturers. Industry minister Tony Clement stated, “The Canadian government won’t be offering a short-term bailout to Canadian auto makers, but would help the industry transform itself so it makes cars that people actually want to buy.”
“Jobs haven’t disappeared they have just moved to other countries such as Japan, Korea, China, and Europe. It’s called outsourcing and eventually the entire North American auto industry will move to these countries where their government’s will play an active role,” states Stanford.
On the other hand, Jeff Hermer has another opinion. “The government shouldn’t provide a direct bail out but they should come up with a plan that will work with the auto industry. You can’t just give us $100 million and say see ya, we won’t learn anything from this.”
With extensive evidence of declining economies being shown in both the American and Canadian auto industries, there must be some sort of solution. According to Jim Stanford, “We need a North American auto pact. We need a policy for the whole continent that would require auto makers to produce as many vehicles in North America as they sell here; that would ensure that each of the three countries in North America gets a fair share of the jobs and investment in this industry, proportional to the size of their market and their population; and that gave support for the industry as it retools and reinvests in smaller cars and in more environmentally-effective vehicles.”
Monday, November 24, 2008
True or False? Corruption within Manufactured American News on War in Iraq
According dictionary.com, propaganda is “information, ideas, or rumours deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.”
Corruption scandals with respect to propagandizing of the war in Iraq have gained momentum; especially in the wake of several fabrications told by Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration officials in order to sell the war to the public.
Documentary producer Michael Moore emphasizes this issue of the war in Iraq being based on a lie in his 2004 documentary ‘Slacker Uprising’. In his film he makes much reference to the 1100 soldiers who have essentially died in the name of a lie. In one scene, Moore was harassing reporters on their lack of accurate investigation prior to the war, whereby the public was convinced of the existence of weapons of mass destruction when the reporters, “failed to do their job.”
According to BBC News in a televised program called “The Debate,” “Bush decided to invade Iraq in April 2001, six months before September 11th, and the official reason was to improve Western access to Iraqi oil.” The decision for military action had nothing to do with 9/11, the war on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, or Iraqi human rights. Furthermore, The Debate had stated that essentially war-time propaganda tells you what you want to hear. They tell you that politicians have noble motives for the war on Iraq.
But before you choose what to believe, have you considered the facts yourself?
Moore claims that his film is the anti-propaganda. “My movie exists to counter the manufactured news,” he says. “The only sad thing about this is that people have to pay $8 or $9 to learn things they should know for free.” Moore claims American society is being fed exaggerations of reality by news agencies, specific mention being made to Fox News and CNN in his film.
“In the end, Moore just didn’t get through to the right people and the slackers just weren’t enough of a force, because America didn’t care. The American public he warned would flip the truth actually continued believing the lies. And we suffered through four more years,” stated movie critic Felix Vasquez.
Katherine Gun, a 29-year-old former translator for the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham UK, was accused in January 2004 for breaching the Official Secrets Act. Gun allegedly disclosed details of a secret U.S. “dirty tricks” operation to spy on UN Security Council members. Gun was reported fired after her arrest.
Her case which had been funded by a legal aid in Cheltenham UK, stated, “Any disclosures that may have been made were justified on the following grounds: because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the United States government who attempted to subvert our own security services. Gun also tried to prevent wide-scale death and causalities among ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war.”
With the 2008 United States federal election on the rise, Moore’s ‘Slacker Uprising’ is a clear warning for Americans to vote. After four years of fighting for peace in the American war with Iraq, nothing has changed. Misleading propaganda is one of the more prominent issues in dealing with election coverage. American citizens need to understand that what they are being told isn’t always completely accurate. Hopefully, Moore’s ‘Slacker Uprising’ will inspire Americans to look past the fabrications of the media and vote with a clear understanding.
Corruption scandals with respect to propagandizing of the war in Iraq have gained momentum; especially in the wake of several fabrications told by Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration officials in order to sell the war to the public.
Documentary producer Michael Moore emphasizes this issue of the war in Iraq being based on a lie in his 2004 documentary ‘Slacker Uprising’. In his film he makes much reference to the 1100 soldiers who have essentially died in the name of a lie. In one scene, Moore was harassing reporters on their lack of accurate investigation prior to the war, whereby the public was convinced of the existence of weapons of mass destruction when the reporters, “failed to do their job.”
According to BBC News in a televised program called “The Debate,” “Bush decided to invade Iraq in April 2001, six months before September 11th, and the official reason was to improve Western access to Iraqi oil.” The decision for military action had nothing to do with 9/11, the war on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, or Iraqi human rights. Furthermore, The Debate had stated that essentially war-time propaganda tells you what you want to hear. They tell you that politicians have noble motives for the war on Iraq.
But before you choose what to believe, have you considered the facts yourself?
Moore claims that his film is the anti-propaganda. “My movie exists to counter the manufactured news,” he says. “The only sad thing about this is that people have to pay $8 or $9 to learn things they should know for free.” Moore claims American society is being fed exaggerations of reality by news agencies, specific mention being made to Fox News and CNN in his film.
“In the end, Moore just didn’t get through to the right people and the slackers just weren’t enough of a force, because America didn’t care. The American public he warned would flip the truth actually continued believing the lies. And we suffered through four more years,” stated movie critic Felix Vasquez.
Katherine Gun, a 29-year-old former translator for the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham UK, was accused in January 2004 for breaching the Official Secrets Act. Gun allegedly disclosed details of a secret U.S. “dirty tricks” operation to spy on UN Security Council members. Gun was reported fired after her arrest.
Her case which had been funded by a legal aid in Cheltenham UK, stated, “Any disclosures that may have been made were justified on the following grounds: because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the United States government who attempted to subvert our own security services. Gun also tried to prevent wide-scale death and causalities among ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war.”
With the 2008 United States federal election on the rise, Moore’s ‘Slacker Uprising’ is a clear warning for Americans to vote. After four years of fighting for peace in the American war with Iraq, nothing has changed. Misleading propaganda is one of the more prominent issues in dealing with election coverage. American citizens need to understand that what they are being told isn’t always completely accurate. Hopefully, Moore’s ‘Slacker Uprising’ will inspire Americans to look past the fabrications of the media and vote with a clear understanding.
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
Brantford, ON. “The internet is influencing a demographic,” says Phil McColeman, Brantford’s representative for the Conservative party. With the Canadian Federal Election held on October 14th, 2008 and on November 4th the United States’ presidential elections, it is truly a momentous occasion, with astounding geopolitical, economic, social, and environmental issues in the mix.
But for what and whom both sides of the border vote is a discussion for another time. The question here is how do citizens actually vote? When it boils down to the mechanics of how people physically cast their vote, can we really place trust in our vote and subsequent future in the hands of technology?
With the rise of technology and the internet, the United States has implemented electronic voting machines on a mass scale. “We need to realize that as the teenage generation matures, we need to have people champion these thoughts and weave it into the election,” says McColeman.
In a 2005 report entitled, "Elections: Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems are Under Way,” by The Government United States Accountability Office stated: Direct Recording Electric (DRE) are systems that include hardware, software, and firmware used to define ballots, cast and count votes, report or display election results, and maintain and produce audit trail information. DREs are able to capture votes electronically- without the use of paper ballots. DREs come in two basic models: pushbutton and touch screen. In general, the interface with the voter is very similar to that of an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).
In the United States, in 2002, the Help America Vote Act mandated that one handicap-accessible voting system be provided per polling place, which most jurisdictions have chosen to satisfy with the use of DRE voting machines, some switching entirely over to DRE. In 2004, 28.9% of the registered voters in the United States used some type of direct recording electronic voting system, up from 7.7% in 1996.
Electronic voting in Canada by contrast, has been used in many cities since the late 1990s at the municipal level, and there have been increasing efforts to introduce it at provincial level. In Ontario 2003, from November 5th to the 10th, twelve municipalities from the Prescott Russell, Stormont Dundas, and Glengarry Counties held the first full municipal and school board electronic elections in North America using either the Internet or with the telephone but no paper ballots. Traditionally, Canada has used the standard form of voting consisting of a ballot and a pencil.
But not everyone is convinced electronic voting is the way to go. “Why spend money to buy a spicy piece of technology, if the standard way of voting is fair and without any problems,” said John O’Neill, owner of Audio-Tronic in Brantford, Ontario.
Nora Fueten, a representative for the Green Party in Brantford Ontario stated, “It is so important for votes to be accurately reported. Why get rid of the standard way, the way we trust? There are always glitches in technology that we must take into consideration. Having a secure system is essential for democracy.”
And in fact, there are some serious problems. Congressional Research Service's Report for Congress from 2003 entitled "Election Reform and Electronic Voting Sytems (DREs): Analysis of Security Issues," stated: “The most well known attack targets are computers with direct internet connections that hackers can exploit.”
The report continues on to explain essentially that an attacker who gains physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code. Malicious code on a machine can steal votes undetectably. Hackers would have access to modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consisted with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also initiate a “voting machine virus,” in which the virus would spread silently undetectably from machine to machine during a normal election.
On the other hand, “Electronic voting machines would be paper efficient. It is environmentally friendly as it saves the use of paper for making ballot papers, printing costs and the making of ballot papers,” says Green Party volunteer David H. Clemons.
Overall, there are many pros and cons with regards to electronic voting machines. Society must consider many factors such as: glitches, security, and environmental friendliness. Electronic voting must be studied and carefully tested before it can be implemented in society.
But for what and whom both sides of the border vote is a discussion for another time. The question here is how do citizens actually vote? When it boils down to the mechanics of how people physically cast their vote, can we really place trust in our vote and subsequent future in the hands of technology?
With the rise of technology and the internet, the United States has implemented electronic voting machines on a mass scale. “We need to realize that as the teenage generation matures, we need to have people champion these thoughts and weave it into the election,” says McColeman.
In a 2005 report entitled, "Elections: Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems are Under Way,” by The Government United States Accountability Office stated: Direct Recording Electric (DRE) are systems that include hardware, software, and firmware used to define ballots, cast and count votes, report or display election results, and maintain and produce audit trail information. DREs are able to capture votes electronically- without the use of paper ballots. DREs come in two basic models: pushbutton and touch screen. In general, the interface with the voter is very similar to that of an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).
In the United States, in 2002, the Help America Vote Act mandated that one handicap-accessible voting system be provided per polling place, which most jurisdictions have chosen to satisfy with the use of DRE voting machines, some switching entirely over to DRE. In 2004, 28.9% of the registered voters in the United States used some type of direct recording electronic voting system, up from 7.7% in 1996.
Electronic voting in Canada by contrast, has been used in many cities since the late 1990s at the municipal level, and there have been increasing efforts to introduce it at provincial level. In Ontario 2003, from November 5th to the 10th, twelve municipalities from the Prescott Russell, Stormont Dundas, and Glengarry Counties held the first full municipal and school board electronic elections in North America using either the Internet or with the telephone but no paper ballots. Traditionally, Canada has used the standard form of voting consisting of a ballot and a pencil.
But not everyone is convinced electronic voting is the way to go. “Why spend money to buy a spicy piece of technology, if the standard way of voting is fair and without any problems,” said John O’Neill, owner of Audio-Tronic in Brantford, Ontario.
Nora Fueten, a representative for the Green Party in Brantford Ontario stated, “It is so important for votes to be accurately reported. Why get rid of the standard way, the way we trust? There are always glitches in technology that we must take into consideration. Having a secure system is essential for democracy.”
And in fact, there are some serious problems. Congressional Research Service's Report for Congress from 2003 entitled "Election Reform and Electronic Voting Sytems (DREs): Analysis of Security Issues," stated: “The most well known attack targets are computers with direct internet connections that hackers can exploit.”
The report continues on to explain essentially that an attacker who gains physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code. Malicious code on a machine can steal votes undetectably. Hackers would have access to modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consisted with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also initiate a “voting machine virus,” in which the virus would spread silently undetectably from machine to machine during a normal election.
On the other hand, “Electronic voting machines would be paper efficient. It is environmentally friendly as it saves the use of paper for making ballot papers, printing costs and the making of ballot papers,” says Green Party volunteer David H. Clemons.
Overall, there are many pros and cons with regards to electronic voting machines. Society must consider many factors such as: glitches, security, and environmental friendliness. Electronic voting must be studied and carefully tested before it can be implemented in society.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
