Culture Jam - Vancouver's topics - tribe.net

Why are YOU a Culture Jammer and What are YOU doing about it.

Oranger — Mon, 07 May 2007 20:17:16 GMT

Answer the question.

I'm a Jammer because I like the door open to Alt. discourse.
I laughed at a Mall and security could do nothing about it.

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

This is it

DjBluecifer — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:10:43 GMT

The thing we have all been waiting for.....let's JAM yippee kayeah mother fuckers.........
Blue

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

Wake up and give us feedback.

Oranger — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:55:30 GMT

Good morning Culture Jammers.
Are you hear to, just listen in?
Are you here to cllect a tribe?
Does adding this to your tribe collection make you feel cool?

It does for me.
I still think that if we don't communicate, participate, and do something, it will be nothing more then unrealized potential.

So, to stay positive and upbeat, I suggest that we shrug the veil of fear and apprehension and look at making something of our little group.
So I will reply to this post with a little "What I'm Doing." and ask you to do the same.

I'm here, I'm weird and I'm ready to go.

Napalm Dragon

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 1 reply

Why are you a Culture Jammer and What are you doing about it.

Oranger — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 03:42:45 GMT

Why did you join this tribe?
AND
What are you going to do about it?

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

And So it begins!!!

Oranger — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:56:02 GMT

The Skytrain Party was a rousing success.
The "Authorities" seemed to actually like it.
Train cars #219 & #220 (connected via accordion) rocked the way through and brought smiles to everyone.
I loved running between doors.
And as a sweet coincidence at about 10:30, I boarded Trains Number 219 & 220 with balloons and stars still hanging from the ceiling.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Devon (of the Carnival Band) has posted a Flickr pool.
If there are any photo's roaming around please pass the word along to post to it.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/flashmobvancouver/pool/

I would like to give a very special commendation to the Carnival band for taking the time to do this.
http://thecarnivalband.com/

They always rock the house.

I also want to thank "You",
Because "We" couldn't have done it without "You".

This particular "happening" has sparked the reemergence of the local Cacophony.
Loveabelitious has taken the lead on this and her enthusiasm will bring a superdelicious momentum to it.

cacophony_vancouver@yahoogroups.com or
cacophony_ca@yahoogroups.ca

I'm very excited about this year ahead, I feel a great deal of momentum and look forward to all that will transpire amongst the beautiful people.

Napalm Dragon

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

NYE - SKYTRAIN PARTY - FREE

Oranger — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:26:53 GMT

OK!!!

Yeah it's settled then.
Let's all start getting the word out to everyone.

Here are the details.
NYE Meet at VCC Clark at 7:45.
Bring EVERYTHING!!!
Music, Costumes, Party Favors, etc,,,
If you have a Stereo or instrument... BRING IT!!!

At 8pm we hop an Accordion Train to the Future.
We ride it full circle to Waterfront and then "Whatever".....

Total Trip time 1hr.
8pm to 9pm.

See you there!!!

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

What can we Culture Jam?

Oranger — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:14:19 GMT

With this group slowly growing, I must ask the question.

What do we want to do?
One thought that comes to mind is acquiring spray chalk and creating an art piece to promote love.
Sounds a little cheesy, but Love would be a better alternative to pushing bullets, in Afghanistan.

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 11 replies

Post effects everyone in BC

catalystism — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:10:23 GMT

Ok. The following effects everyone working and living and paying taxes in BC so i am posting everywhere I can. please read. and then email and talk to everyone you know about it and what to do about it.

Here is some information about the unheard of Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement between BC and Alberta.

I want to make two points and then a plee before you read the article.

1)"The Agricultural Land Commission, the
Island Trusts, regional districts and land use restrictions in
provincial parks will all be vulnerable to a TILMA challenge as of next
April (2007)." - This is for any evironmentalist on the culture jamming list and beyond.

2 )"They could then be challenged for
regulating the size and location of commercial signs and billboards,
imposing height restrictions on buildings, or requiring green space
allocations from developers." - For all you cultural jammers out there, you are going to have a lot of work on your hands. all those new billboards, popping up everywhere.

My plee: I don't know of any actions/campaigns against this agreement, yet. I hope i will find some to inform you all of. But from where I stand, we need to do something. What? Don't know that part yet. But I think we might be able to angle it from the illegitimacy of the agreement (" no legislation introduced to give it legitimacy")
I just really want to get a discussion on this going. So any thoughts would be great.
I will attach the original article as well on the bottom.

fighting till my last breath,
jax

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 13, 2006

Murray Dobbin

Last April the governments of B.C. and Alberta signed an agreement
called the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).
There was no public notice, little media coverage, no legislation
introduced to give it legitimacy and no debate in the legislature. The
Alberta-based think tank, the Canada West Foundation, says TILMA will
rid the provinces of barriers that "frustrate business".

The most draconian aspect of TILMA is its investment provisions. Once
the agreement enters into force on April 1, 2007, individuals and
businesses will gain the right to launch complaints and get up to $5
million in awards against governments just because they “restrict”
investment. Since pretty much everything a government does in some way
restricts investment, the two provinces are in for a wild ride.

TILMA claims will be decided by NAFTA-like panels.

What are some examples of government restrictions on investment that
could be challenged under TILMA? TILMA has some exceptions, but land use
planning is not one of them. The Agricultural Land Commission, the
Island Trusts, regional districts and land use restrictions in
provincial parks will all be vulnerable to a TILMA challenge as of next
April. Municipalities will have a two-year grace period before the
government extends TILMA to them. They could then be challenged for
regulating the size and location of commercial signs and billboards,
imposing height restrictions on buildings, or requiring green space
allocations from developers. And they can be challenged starting in
April if they introduce bylaws that are stricter than their existing ones.

We can get some idea of what we might be in for by looking at Oregon. A
ballot measure approved in 2004 gives property owners there the right to
sue for compensation for anything the state or local governments do that
restricts the value of their property. The result is the effective end
of land use planning. According to Sheila Martin, Director of the
Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies, the ballot measure has
resulted in over 6,000 claims totalling over $6 billion.

“The biggest impact of the measure,” says Martin, “has been on Oregon’s
land use regulations which seek to protect farm and forest land.” Land
use deregulation outside the cities has Martin especially worried: “The
urban growth boundary will become ‘leaky,’ releasing pressure for higher
density in the cities.” Many challenges have been filed against “sign
ordinances” regulating the size and location of commercial signs.

Like the dilemma BC and Alberta will face under TILMA, Oregon is now
having to decide whether to pay compensation to keep their regulations,
or waive them for the complainant. The trouble is, there is no limit to
the number of claims that can be made against a single regulation - so
if you want to keep it, you have to keep paying.

How many claims will BC get? Oregon allows anyone with property in the
state to sue over land use regulation. TILMA gives Albertans the right
to sue BC over restrictions on their BC investments, and vice versa. But
Gordon Campbell is hocking TILMA to all the other provinces to get them
to sign on, which would expand the potential number of complaints
against BC. And under TILMA complaints can be made against a wide range
of government regulations or programs, not just land use planning.

TILMA allows for a limited number of “Legitimate Objectives” so
governments can try to defend themselves before a dispute panel, arguing
their regulations were "necessary." But nothing in TILMA recognizes the
kind of quality of life objectives served by land use planning.
Moreover, a government would also have to demonstrate that its measure
is not more restrictive to business than necessary to achieve its
objectives.

BC officials are making extravagant claims about trade barriers between
the provinces, suggesting that TILMA could “save” BC $4.8 billion - an
eye-popping figure, equivalent to what BC earns annually from its
softwood exports to the US. In October, federal officials told a Senate
committee that reliable studies have estimated inter-provincial trade
barriers to be about one tenth the amount BC is claiming, and vary
depending on what is defined as a trade barrier. Is the removal of land
use restrictions part of the "benefits" to be gained by TILMA? What
about the drop in property values that could result from uncontrolled
development?

Alberta cabinet minister Gary Mar told a Richmond business audience the
easy process TILMA provides for complaints to be taken against
governments is "everything Canadian business asked for." He was right
about that. But what about everyone else?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

www.winnipegfreepress.com/westv...c.html

Agreement cuts provincial powers to govern

Winnipeg Free Press

Fri Nov 3 2006

By Murray Dobbin

WHAT if a provincial government signed an agreement forcing it to make
most of its regulations identical to those of another province? What if
this government voluntarily made itself, and every municipality within
its borders, open to lawsuits over virtually anything it did that
restricted investment? What if it tied its own hands so that, no matter
how much a region was suffering economically, it could not provide
assistance that might "distort investment decisions?"

Well, there are no "what ifs" about it. This past spring, B.C.'s Gordon
Campbell and Alberta's Ralph Klein signed an agreement with exactly
these sweeping constraints on the ability to govern. It is called the
Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement. B.C. and Alberta trade
officials are now shopping it around to other provinces to get them to
sign on. The agreement comes into effect next April.

According to Todd Hirsch of the Canada West Foundation, the agreement
could erase the borders between B.C. and Alberta so that the only
differences between them will be "voting and the colour of the licence
plate."

Except, once the agreement comes into full force, voting provincially in
B.C. and Alberta could be a waste of time.

Under the agreement, the B.C. or Alberta government will be barred from
doing anything that could "impair or restrict" trade, not only between
the provinces but also through them to another province or country. One
article just flatly decrees that there shall be "No Obstacles" to this
trade.

Governments will be prohibited from providing subsidies that either
directly or indirectly "distort investment decisions."
Click here to find out more!
Some exceptions, such as for water, are permitted but even these are to
be reviewed annually to get them reduced.

The agreement also requires B.C. and Alberta to "mutually recognize or
otherwise reconcile their existing standards and regulations" if these
"impair or restrict" trade, investment or labour mobility. Then it
prohibits new regulations from being introduced that would have these
effects. Since regulation always restricts investment in some way, the
result will be that all future B.C. and Alberta governments will be
prevented from strengthening their regulations.

How exactly is this going to work? What would happen, for example, if
B.C. voters decided they had had enough of leaky condos and voted for a
party committed to tougher construction regulations? A government
elected on such a commitment would quickly find it had to betray its
promise or be vulnerable to a trade investment challenge.

Plus if either province considers any new initiatives, it has to give
the other party to the agreement the right to comment in advance and is
then obligated to "take the other province's comments into
consideration." In sharp contrast, citizens in B.C. and Alberta were
never consulted by their own governments on this astonishing agreement.

As part of their sales job, Alberta's Gary Mar and B.C.'s Colin Hansen
have claimed the agreement will not result in lower provincial standards
-- just ones that are "appropriate." In reality, however, the agreement
can only lead to deregulation because businesses are only likely to sue
governments over regulations they think are too high, not ones that are
too weak. In a vastly expanded version of provisions in NAFTA, any
resident of B.C. or Alberta will gain extensive new grounds to sue
government. A dispute panel will be empowered to make binding decisions
and grant compensation of up to $5 million for any government action
that violates the agreement. Repeated complaints can be taken about the
same government policy or regulation.

Governments can go on bended knee to trade investment panels and argue
that their regulations were "necessary," but trade dispute panels rarely
accept such arguments. Plus, this agreement only recognizes a limited
list of regulatory objectives as "legitimate."

For example, a city's desire to prevent urban blight is not on the list
of legitimate objectives, so municipal bans on billboards would likely
be a violation.

No wonder Gary Mar could tell a business audience in Richmond that the
dispute process is "everything Canadian business asked for."
The pact creates endless potential for litigation against government
right down to the school board level, without any demonstrable benefit.
A 1998 study done for the B.C. government found that: "efforts to
liberalize interprovincial trade will have almost no effect on trade
flows. The reality is that interprovincial trade barriers are already
very low."

As for labour mobility, all of provisions for increased labour mobility
will already be covered in Premier Gary Doer's initiative to see
professional requirements harmonized across Canada.

To sum up, the agreement pretty much bans new regulation and government
assistance for economic development. Perhaps in anticipation of the
pact, the B.C. legislature's fall sitting was cancelled with the
government claiming there was not enough to do. When asked about the
constitutionality of the agreement, Steven Shrybman, a partner in the
law firm of Sack, Goldblatt, and Mitchell, commented that "a basic
principle of constitutional law is that a government cannot fetter its
own legislative prerogatives by abandoning its authority to govern."

Sounds like what the Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement is
all about.

Murray Dobbin is a Vancouver-based writer.

fighting till my last breath,
jax (jaxfitzgibbon@yahoo.ca)

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

Let's Jam the Culture....

Oranger — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:15:23 GMT

Hey folks, there's been a steady stream of people jumping on board.
This is great!!!
Now let's do something with it.

Two Ideas that have come up on the Yahoo Group...

Smile Reminder: Paint and Idea on the sidewalk the will spark positive thought for the Worker Bees.
Pirate Radio Broadcast: Topic Unknown

So let's DO SOMETHING!!!!
What will it be?

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 3 replies

Buy Nothing Day @ SFU

stickygreen666 — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:44:02 GMT

posting this for a friend

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Loretta Laurin" <loretta_laurin@hotmail.com>
To: vancouver@adbusters.org
Subject: [Vancouver] Buy Nothing Day and Fair Trade Week at SFU
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:20:02 -0800

Hey Jammers!

I've been working with Oxfam SFU to create a fair trade week from Nov. 20th - Nov. 24 and I figured it might be of interest to you. All week, except Thursday, we'll be selling fair trade goods on campus (Simon Fraser University, in Convo Mall) We also have some fun awareness raising activities that, if you participate in, you can be entered to win a gift basket of fairtrade items (One basket per day). We also have a gift wrapping station and cups of fair trade coffee by donation. On friday there will also be a swap meet, where you can get rid of your old junk and/or pick up someone else's "junk" for free! I encourage all of you to come out.

On Thursday, of course, it is BUY NOTHING DAY! We're going to be giving out free samples of nothing on campus and encouraging students to sign our buy nothing pledge.

On top of that, I'm also planning to do some BND things off campus, and I would love it if any of you could join in and/or help organize it. It is going to be a shopping-death-flashmob at metrotown in the evening. (Probably at around 6:30)
The details still need to be sorted out, but the general idea is that we'd gather into a big court area in metrotown mall and stage a "death by shopping" scene, where everyone runs in screaming and looking like consumourism has beat them up (bar codes stamped on skin, clothes hangers stuck in shirts, chokeing on monopoly money, etc.) and then we all die dramaticly. (Oh the creative potential!)
There will also be a more activisty part of this before the flashmob, where we will go around advocating Buy Nothing Day to shoppers. (Handing out flyers, talking to people, asking shoppers if they're aware about the impacts of consumourism, etc.) The idea is that we'd come in from all entrances in small groups (depending on how many people are participating), raise awareness, and walk towards the flashmob spot and meet up all at the same time. (of course, by meet up, I mean make a scene)
However, I'm not quite solid in this plan because I don't know how horrible the security would be with regards to our actions, so we're always open to more ideas :)
If you're interested please let me know!

Cheers,
-Loretta

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 1 reply

what's your wrench?

David — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 07:02:15 GMT

We're here to throw a wrench in the machine, right?

Knock ourselves (first) and other people (second) out of the ruts, routines, and the mindlessness of daily life, right?

And I equate this goal to truly living life. Is this correct?

If so, what's your wrench? What difference can you throw (gently) in people's faces?

We're already letting ourselves be absorbed into a sort of digital uniformity by writing here. What positive effect are you (and am I) ready to make on the real world beyond the keyboard and screen?

I know it may sound small, but I'm going to teach my neighbours how to dance.

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

The Ultimate Culture Jam!!!

Oranger — Mon, 01 May 2006 18:16:52 GMT

Bush rips himself apart (mostly)
http://tinyurl.com/n52nl

Then... (The Ultimate Culture Jam)
Steven Colbert Rippes Bush & the entire Presidential Correspondents to shreds (to thier face) Incredible... the best Culture Jam ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcIRXur61II&search=colbert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN0INDOkFuo&search=colbert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJvar7BKwvQ&search=colbert

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies

culture jamming connection

stickygreen666 — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 06:00:08 GMT

Hey I wanted to let everyone know that adbusters started a culture jamming E-mail list a few years ago, and If you would like to join that too, the addy is vancouver-request@adbusters.org
just put subscribe in the subject line, there isn't too many people on there but it diversifies the pool of jammers

posted in Culture Jam - Vancouver - 0 replies