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Vancouver Sun Slams Women's Economic Justice ReportLetters to the Sun In the July 22, 2006 Vancouver Sun, columnist Daphne Bramham slams the Summary: Bramham states about the report, "Far from helping women like them, this report makes the
whole idea [guaranteed income] seem ridiculous." and "The 72-page report
by Cindy L'Hirondelle reeks of a sloppy, sentimentalist view of nature,
a vision of an idyllic, Rousseau-ian rural life minus the peasants." And "Please, somebody tell me that the Victoria Status of Women Action
Group's recently released list of benefits of a guaranteed annual income
wasn't written for David Letterman." But that is not all. She also makes a very damaging mistake about one of
the points listed under the section on "concerns". She thinks we were
saying that we did not want people new to Canada to have a GLI. She got
it backwards! We had the opposite concern. We wanted to ensure that
people new to Canada could easily access getting a Guaranteed Livable
Income. Throughout the report it is also noted that a GLI is a universal concept and must happen in
every country in the world. She attributes her mistaken ideas about the report to the project coordinator personally and makes defamatory statements: "she has no intention of sharing the benefits" and "I
guess she figures that the equality section of the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms shouldn't apply to 'foreigners'." Write: Email Bramham: dbramham@png.canwest.com Send us a copy: swag@pacificcoast.net |
Letters sent to Bramham and the Vancouver Sun 1) Stephanie Lovatt |
| Well, don't I find Ms Bramhams opinion of Victoria' Status of Women's project on Women's economic justice booklet to be typical of what one might expect from a woman, herself bought and paid for. There she is, groveling under the tables of the big boys for a few crumbs, a paycheck, and the right to slag other women for the mortal sin of having a connection to the earth and a love of freedom. Nice going. Nothing like a ration of ridicule and mockery to silence those who dare to dream about a sort of future outside of poverty, rape, and mass murder. Nothing like the designer shoe brigade jeering the real life experiences of women who are enduring poverty and want. In case you haven't noticed old girl, man land is going up in flames. Maybe you are too well served to think that your present reality, complete with all the fine trappings of the colonial mindset, might be one whose time has come. When you are bailing on a raft somewhere, singing songs of past glory, steer a course for Victoria. If you have at that time regained a sense of your own humanity, we could feed you some of our home grown organic carrots. Incidently, women in Ireland are arriving at the same conclusions regarding a Guaranteed Livable Income, as are women in Italy and in South America. So I guess that there are women "reeking" all over. Maybe the dog box is fine for you, but women will continue to build an alternative reality, with or without your support. P.S. Who are "women like them"? Is this a passage from the dictionary of class distinction? Stephanie Lovatt Post Script: This letter was also refused by PAR-L because it was "flaming." Stephanie also responded: Yes! perhaps a nasty side was present. Of course a nasty side was present. The nasty was definitely present. What people in this culture do miss is that nasty is also very present in wordy, academic poison pen. By contrast my letters expose and name what is utterly nasty and when I do, the so called polite mask falls away. The truth of the matter is not polite. The truth of the matter is racist, classist, colonial and frightening to those who are still denying that women and children are dying everywhere. Read Amnesty International and the UN report report on the plight of women world wide. This is not a game of who can be the best feminist, or who can write the most politically correct letters. Or indeed who an use the most "professional" utterances. The bottom line is the survival of women and children at street level (ground level) Par-l wishes to remain safe. Nothing wrong with that except that walls of safety exist only in the imagination of an academic class. What is even more disgusting is that D Bramham is getting a paycheck to carpet bag other women. Nasty, you bet! Thanks for your letter. Another mainland woman wrote: "You are doing exactly what you accuse Ms Bramham of doing. I read her critique of the report and as much as I didn't agree with all of it, I took her opinion as just that. However, she has more than been a friend to women for many years and has done lots of good work, and we have been lucky to have her in that forum. I've been in contact with her on other issues and she has always treated me with the greatest of respect. These comments are beneath you and all of us..." to which someone else wrote: #### read Bramham vicious assault on SWAG and by extension her assault on poor people all over the world who are not supporters of Milton Friedman's right wing starving 'guaranteed income.' ...and concluded "I took her opinion as just that." Then she read Stephanie defending SWAG and poor people and concluded: "These comments are beneath you and all of us, so as I say, do not include me in this kind of insulting rhetoric." NO WONDER WE'RE IN THE MIDST OF A RELENTLESS GENOCIDE OF THE POOR AND ECOCIDE OF THE WHOLE PLANET !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
The Vancouver Sun's Daphne Bramham believes that harvesting ever more natural resources and using ever more energy to make more products to sell us consumers is the only and only 'true' solution to world poverty. Given that Bramham herself is not an actual capitalist like Bill Gates, her actual solution to systemic poverty is for everyone to get jobs at places like the Vancouver Sun writing about how absurd ideas such a guaranteed livable income are. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: "The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other." ... Final Words of Advice "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?," 1967 The problem is that free marketers are totally opposed to full employment. Henry Hazlitt wrote: "The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase." "...Yet our legislators do not present Full Production bills in Congress but Full Employment bills. Even committees of businessmen recommend “a President’s Commission on Full Employment,” not on Full Production, or even on Full Employment and Full Production. Everywhere the means is erected into the end, and the end itself is forgotten" ["Economics in One Lesson | The Lesson Applied | The Fetish of Full Employment"] So here it is in a nutshell: 1) If you are for a guaranteed livable income to end world poverty you reek of a sloppy, sentimentalist view of nature, a vision of an idyllic, Rousseau-ian rural life minus the peasants and you're guility of neo-Luddite thinking buttressed with Marxist-socialist cant." 2) If you are for full employment to end poverty, you are still a reeking socialist in that the free market has no interest in providing you with paid employment just so that you don't starve of freeze or get sick and die without any medical care. Sounds like the poor poor are caught between a rock and hard place! But it gets worse. Vandana Shiva wrote, "The proposal to solve the ecological crisis by giving market values to all resources is like offering the disease as the cure. The reduction of all value to commercial value, and the removal of all spiritual, ecological, cultural and social limits to exploitation - the shift that took place at the time of industrialization - is central to the ecological crisis" ("Values beyond price"). But without a guaranteed livable income, what choice do we have but to 'convert' nature into commodities to sell for money? In the beginning of his 1960 book "The Waste Makers," Vance Packard quoted Dorothy L. Sayers as saying: "A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand" ("Creed or Chaos," 1952). Yet, in the preface to his 2002 book "The Enemy Of Nature," Joel Kovel wrote, "Growing numbers of people are beginning to realize that capitalism is the uncontrollable force driving our ecological crisis, only to become frozen in their tracks by the awesome implications of the insight." Poor people continue to die in poverty while being attacked from free marketers and while even social justice allies are 'frozen in their tracks.' Consider writing a letter to: Daphne Bramham: dbramham@png.canwest.com Ask them how poor people are supposed to escape poverty is there is neither full employment nor a guaranteed income? Pass this information to other people and other email lists and ask them to send letters to Bramham and the Vancouver Sun. Ask people to send letters day after day until Bramham and the Vancouver Sun explain how people can escape poverty is there is neither full employment or a guarantreed livaable income. From: Livable Income For Everyone LIFE ( gli2020@shaw.ca) See also the article: Top Ten Reasons for not having a Guaranteed Livable Income |
Guaranteed Livable Income a Universal idea Vancouver Sun, Opinion article submission, July 24, 2006 Printed in the Vancouver Sun, July 26, page A11 under the "Soundoff" section with title: "Hatchet job misses main themes of report" in a shortened version (omitted material sett off by < > and are in orange text) Approximate dimension of "Soundoff" letter: 6.5 x 5 inches (17 cm x 13 cm) As of July 31, 2006, the defamatory material is still on the Vancouver Sun website. *** In Daphne Bramham's July 22 column "Oh, wouldn't it be lover-ly?" she launches a none-too-subtle attack on the Women's Economic Justice Report on Guaranteed Livable Income and me personally. She <hopes the ideas in the report are a joke>, calls the report "sloppy", "sentimentalist", "Rousseau-ian", <"sprinkled with neo-Luddite thinking", "buttressed with Marxist-socialist cant"; that I am "channeling the founders of the Social Credit party",> making the guaranteed annual income idea seem "ridiculous", doing a "huge disservice" to the women interviewed, < that I "trivialized the desperate needs of the poor", made a "nonsensical lament about how [low income women] can't buy organic", put feminism in disrepute and made the rest of Canada see us as "wigged-out West Coasters." I'm surprised she didn't call me a blood-drinking vampire as well, but then she wonders if I'm vegan. If she had contacted me, I would have told her: that's right, I only drink the blood of organic carrots. > Her <over-the-top> hatchet job would be funny if she didn't also state in all seriousness that I have "no intention of sharing the benefits" of GLI and that I must believe that "the equality section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms shouldn't apply to 'foreigners'." <She gets this point completely backward.> [That is not the case.] At some of the meetings it was brought up that everyone, including those new to Canada like refugees needed to also get a GLI. We did not want to exclude people, in fact throughout the report the GLI is emphasized as a *universal* concept both within each country and worldwide. <To quote a young woman I interviewed from Rwanda in reference to guaranteed income: "This is the issue that has to be tackled worldwide, not just limited to one country or one continent. We are facing the same problems in all parts of the world."> Bramham also takes themes that are included in our report - dozens of times -- and then implies that we do not make these obvious cases for the need for a guaranteed income. She writes, "Women -- or men -- should not be penalized for staying home to look after children or elderly parents. They shouldn't be forced to choose between staying in an abusive relationship or living in poverty." These are some of the main themes of the report yet this does not come across in Bramham's article. <In regards to Bramham's description of the "nonsensical lament" of not being able to buy organic food: many women, especially those with health problems, repeatedly stated during interviews the importance of organic food. Improved health was the number one benefit cited for a GLI. Organic food was seen as key to good nutrition and thus good health. What is "nonsensical" about this?> And what is "sloppy" about pointing out economic facts as I do, at length, in my <"Strong Case"> article contained in the report? As Adam Smith states in the Wealth of Nations, "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production" <(Chapter VIII)>. Thus, all exhortations to solve poverty with higher productivity and economic growth necessitates more consumption. And where do consumers come from? They are born.This underscores how the economy is dependent on women's unpaid work. With a guaranteed livable income, dropping birth rates would not be an economic concern. But with an economy based on economic growth you need either a) more consumers or b) more consumption. <According to the European Population Conference 2005, "Never in history has there been economic growth without population growth"; the Wall Street Journal frets, "Not enough babies: Report fingers new threat to economy" (August 23, 2005); Alan Mirabelli of the Vanier Institute of the Family (Globe & Mail, Aug. 12, 2003) stated: "If we are not producing more citizens who will ultimately consume, that is a problem"; and the National Post recently ran a 4-part series on "Canada's Baby Gap" Feb. 18-22, 2006). There are countless such articles -- how ironic that it turns out that the wealth of nations depends on mothers.> In the 1960s and '70s there was a great deal of momentum for guaranteed income. Today there is more of a global network of GLI/Basic Income proponents who understand that every person in the world needs a Guaranteed Livable Income. <Some pro-technology people also advocate guaranteed income as a way to spread the benefits of technology without worrying about taking away people's jobs. And even if volunteer bloggers replace paid newspaper "journalists" like Daphne Bramham, that's okay. She could get a Guaranteed Livable Income too.> Cindy L'Hirondelle |
How about Getting Your Facts Straight ?? Dear Daphne Bramham, Here's a copy of a letter I sent to the editor of the paper for which you wrote an article. In the article you seem to be upset at anyone suggesting some practical steps to attempt to overcome poverty. You sound like you're in favor of keeping people in poverty, you don't address the issue in any respectful or serious way, you seem to be writing off the entire plan, as if it has absoutely no merit, and your reason seems to be that you say so! How about researching the issue, how about discussing it with people who are suffering the condition, how about thinking about it, how about interviewing L'Hirondelle, how about getting your facts straight, (I've read some of the drafts of the GLI and you've misquoted and misunderstood many of the points). Please do your research, and you may end up writing a bit more humbly, and in a more intelligent way about this issue. I hope you'll re-think what you've written and write a more balanced article to correct your misconceptions. Thanks. To Elaine, Daphne Bramham, Columnist, The Vancouver Sun |
Bramham argues guaranteed income only acceptable as part of far right agenda? Dear Vancouver Sun, I was impressed to see the inches of the Sun on Saturday alotted to a review on Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI), "Oh wouldn't it be Lover-ly?" But, Bramham managed to use the space to get most of the facts wrong and slam some of Canada's finest leaders on the debate - Cindy L'Hirondelle, the Victoria Status of Women Action Group and feminists everywhere. Bramham argues in short that a GLI would be acceptable if it were part of a far right agenda. True, most arch-conservatives argue in favour of ridding themselves of any employer responsibilities (medical, holidays, pensions). Some of them like economist Milton Friedman have twisted the term GLI as a way to advance that agenda. But a GLI is not about that. A GLI does not replace employer or government responsibilities it is in addition to them. It would operate like our national health care system in that everyone would be entitled to it. GLI is an important and intelligent argument worth serious consideration. I urge readers to investigate it more because one thing is for sure, you won't get the straight goods in this review. Louisa Russell, |
Thinly disguised attack hiding behind the progressive cloak Dear Vancouver Sun, There are many fundamental misrepresentations in this article. Two glaring ones follow. Ms. Bramham said: There are hundreds of good reasons to argue for a guaranteed annual income. But L'Hirondelle provides every reason for the Conservative government to ignore it. Then Ms. Bramham does an about face. She proceeds to mention two powerful reasons for a Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) that came right from the Victoria Status of Women's Action Group document, The Women's Economic Justice Report--and neglects to credit the report for the reasons: 1. The Royal Commission on the Status of Women recommended in 1972 that Canada adopt a guaranteed annual income (pp. 2, 4; Women's Economic Justice Report http://pacificcoast.net/~swag/WEJreportintro.htm 2. "We often speak of someone 'making money,' when we really mean that he or she is receiving an income. We do not mean that he or she has a printing press in the basement churning out greenbacked pieces of paper." -- Milton Friedman, "Money Mischief," 1992 (p. 71, http://pacificcoast.net/~swag/strongcaseGLI.htm). Additionally, the weaker concept of "guaranteed annual income" was repetitively used by Ms. Bramham in place of the realistic "guaranteed livable income." Just because an income is guaranteed annually, this does not assure the person a life of dignity with access to basic needs. Indeed, an annual income could even be less than welfare is now, if the government in power so chose. But a "livable" income would be marked to clear, life enhancing standards, extensively identified by the Livable Income for Everyone ("LIFE") Society, http://www.livableincome.org. These would be at the very least income to pay for decent shelter, low carb/pesticide-free/organic food locally grown, pollution free water and air, affordable/accessible public transit and safe bicycle infrastructure, education for oneself and children, clothing and internet access (in 1999, 4.8 billion people didn't even have phones yet). Ms. Bramham's article amounts to a thinly disguised attack hiding behind the progressive cloak. She fails to reveal how the thousands of the world's daily child deaths from fully preventable causes of income inaccessibility wouldn't benefit from their caretakers receiving a guaranteed livable income. "Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else. I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective -- the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? , New York: Harper & Row, 1967 "O Laziness, have pity on our long misery! O Laziness, mother of the arts and noble virtues, be thou the balm of human anguish!" --Paul Lafargue, The Right to Be Lazy, 1883 Thankyou, |
Money never meant to be used as a weapon Dear Editor: Daphine Bramham's paltry attempt to discredit the Women's Economic Justice Project & its coordinator in "Oh wouldn't it be loverly?" published in the Vancouver Sun, Saturday July 22 is a blatant example of yellow journalism at its sleaziest. Bramham also failed to offer an alternative solution to the GLI she lambasted in her article even though she mentions that hundreds of studies have favoured such a proposal. The necessity of a GLI is exemplified by our current economic system that prevents the well being and threatens the very survival of the masses and the planet in favour of a minority of people who garner the bulk of the world's wealth for themselves. Yet money was never meant to be used as a weapon to condemn the majority of people in the world to a lifetime of poverty, misery and failure. Money is simply a means to facilitate the exchange of goods and services we all require for survival. A GLI would be especially beneficial in eliminating the relentless frustration and oppression that accompanies poverty which would allow mothers to provide better parenting and caregiving for elderly family members without being forced to endure the all pervasive stigma of unemployment. To my mind, a GLI is long overdue and I believe it's implementation would help provide the world with a jump start to good health and well being that would ultimately provide an opportunity for humanity to fulfill its potential and hopefully learn to celebrate rather than undermine the miracle of life. Or would we rather succumb to the grim theory of learned helplessness and continue on the same old treadmill indefinitely? Phyllis Kahn, Victoria |
Bramham misses 150 + 80 points Dear Editors: Daphne Bramham's almost curious "Oh, wouldn't it be lover-ly?" (VS, July 22) could possibly leave an inaccurate and unfortunate impression regarding the Women's Economic Justice Report on Guaranteed Livable Income. While Ms. Bramham's wit is unquestioned, her accuracy could be slightly improved. Apart from her strange misrepresentation regarding WEJ's position on eligibility of immigrants to GLI, other comments seem also to mislead. For example, contrary to Bramham's assertion that "Marxist-socialist cant" to "buttress" the Report is everywhere, there is no such thing, and the mention of this remark is almost disturbing and certainly puzzling. Bramham's review unfortunately contained little of the important content of the Report. For example, about 150 different benefits of a GLI were identified, as well as 80 different present costs of not having a GLI. As for the increase in the possibilities for realizing peace and eliminating war resulting from a universally guaranteed income, which Bramham attempts to make light of at the beginning of her negativity, the benefits are very real and numerous. Cindy L'Hirondelle, Coordinator of the WEJ Project on GLI, has created a useful and insightful contribution to the universal guaranteed income discussion, thereby making its realization ever closer yet. Robley E. George , Director |
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Columnist Daphne Bramham has flunked her attempt at speed-reading. She not only misinterpreted the Guaranteed Livable Income report, but attributed quotes and views to Cindy L'Hirondelle that are not her own. The report summarizes an interview project where poor women told how a GLI would change their lives. Some replies were on the naive side, yes. But can anyone seriously contend that money doesn't impact choices relating to employment, consumer purchases, environmental sustainability, or peace and war? Bramham scoffs at L'Hirondelle's "strong argument": without a GLI, "babies and children will continue to die from easily preventable poverty-related causes...." But destitute women who receive Grameen Bank microcredit loans identify two key benefits to a livable income: husbands don't beat them, and babies don't die. Many economists favour a GLI, but discuss it in jargon that is gibberish to the general public. This report was about women, not economists. Women's issues are concrete. They want to leave abusive spouses, buy wholesome food, spend time with family, support local producers, quit degrading or dangerous jobs, live in decent housing, and have healthy children. Bramham mocks their longing for a "Rousseau-ian rural life." But people do feel spiritually renewed by natural settings. Contrast an idyllic Rousseau landscape with the combination of "Neuromancer," "Mad Max" and "1984" that is starting to look like our probable future. What Bramham calls sloppy sentimentality, I call a no-brainer! If we don't change directions, we will end up where we are headed. Sincerely, Geneva Hagen |
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Hi Cindy, Got this on Monday only opened it today. This woman is very accusatory, " If you had bothered to read the column rather than just responding to a mass email." She still does not get it that we are talking about a guaranteed 'livable' income and that it would be based on widely held Canadian values that have since been ransomed for a paycheck to the ultimate detriment of our communities, nation-wide. She has no concept of quality-of-life issues and she strikes me as a visionless poor-basher. Again the intensity of her attack and her tone in her email to me [below] is also a very positive sign. She is definitely challenged by truth. She did not address her serious, published mistake about the eligibility of immigrants to Canada. She assumes I haven't read the article or the report, "You might want to read the Victoria report and draw your own conclusions." Not only condescending but sidestepping the issue I raised; poor research and sloppy journalism. I find her response disturbingly disrespectful. "Failed to make a cogent and compelling argument." we know that her comprehension is not that great. How did she not get that fact that these women were interviewed for the project and no one had any control over what they said? Some people just don't get the idea of transparency in process. If she is going to write about this issue she needs to get educated. And what makes her think that the male-socialised domination system in Ottawa is not ideological? Maybe this is the fundamental rift in her thinking. The GLI as a public health, public safety initiative and a just transition to sustainability is on its way whether Daphne is disappointed or not. I wonder if she is aware of Andrew MacLeod's article on the 6065 deaths of BC financially challenged citizens who died in a 32 month period from June 2002 to January 2005 while on income assistance. BC is a failed state and that is evident by the number of human rights violations, these hidden 6065 deaths, gutting the Human Rights Commission, 713 hidden child deaths, 43 forest worker deaths in '05, desertifying the landscape putting our water security at risk with ineffective forestry and environmental legislation ect... So there it is. Cheers, Reply from D. Bramham To Jen If you had bothered to read the column rather than just responding to a mass email, you would realize that I support a guaranteed annual income. What I objected to was the report by the Victoria group because it failed to make a cogent and compelling argument. Instead it meandered into an ideological swamp. I don't believe that a guaranteed annual income is needed so that people can opt out of working and tend organic gardens. I don't believe as one of the women quoted in the report does that she has a right to quit an $18 an hour job because it's boring. I don't believe as another woman quoted in the report does that we need a guaranteed annual income so people can travel more and experience different cultures (much as I would like to). I do believe that a guaranteed annual income is needed because there are too many women and children living in poverty. But in order for any government and particularly this Conservative government to be convinced of that, it means making strong economic, social and political arguments for it. And my disappointment with the Victoria report is that it failed so miserably to do so. You might want to read the Victoria report and draw your own conclusions. Daphne Bramham, Columnist, The Vancouver Sun |
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In Response: to an article by Daphne Bramham's July 22 column "Oh,wouldn't it be lover-ly?" she blatantly accuses Victoria's Status of Women Action Group's writer of the Economic Justice Report of doing a disservice to the women interviewed among many other accusations and untruths. It's very obvious that she does not want to see a Guaranteed Livable Income (as is the usual response for people that are afraid of losing their jobs, or don't understand the concept). This is not a new concept by any means or just in Canada, the movement is worldwide. As one of the interviewees I feel that there has been no disservice made to me, and as a participant to WUF3 (World Urban Forum 3) when I spoke to others from around the world about the GLI their views were much the same as the report. Maybe if Daphne read the full report she might know what she's talking about or actually spoke with some of the interviewed women or even the reports writer. And as for the Charter of rights and freedoms, maybe she should go back and reread that as well, besides the government of Canada does not have an unblemished track record of great human rights. So before someone writes about anything do your research and get your facts straight, and don't presume to speak for others unless you have walked in their shoes. Quiet no more, Reply from D. Bramham to Debie I did read the report. I have also read several other reports on the guaranteed annual income, which make cogent, defensible arguments for the guaranteed annual income unlike this report. Had you read to the bottom of my column, you would have known that I support a guaranteed annual income to ensure that people -- especially mothers and children -- aren't living in poverty in this very rich country. What I don't support the ridiculous notion that it is in any way sustainable if people use it to go travelling or to tend organic gardens for their own use. The heart of the so-called economic justice report is that the guaranteed annual income would provide the means for the overthrow of the capitalist, patriarchial system because as you know communism has worked out so well. Regards, Daphne Bramham, Columnist, The Vancouver Sun |
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To whom it may concern. I have a copy of this report and I am appalled that this Sun Reporter Daphennie has done such an incredelous hatchet job, on this report .She must of read a different report than I did. This from an reporter who dilligently filled a number of very thoughtful, literate and thought-provoking series of controversial articles on that anti-women /religious order called Bountiful in Creston , B.C. over the past few years, apparently landing her on the media/government black list. It seems she is trying to get off this list by doing this hatchet job of writing. Shame, Shame on Her for taking out her frustrations out where it does not belong and in my opinion, have lost total respect for her integrity and for me it destroys her credibility as well as a reporter. Thank-you Marilyn Young, BC |
Eating organic food makes sense Ms Bramham: I have strong concerns about your unthoughtful and highly disrespectful response to the Women's Economic Justice Report in your article of July 22 in the Vancouver Sun. Clearly this report has been carefully researched, acknowledging clearly how a guaranteed livable incomes challenges us to consider about how we need to live in community with our fellow human beings. That a woman who is poor and disabled wants to eat organic food makes sense to me; as someone who recently has been quite unwell I have been careful to only consume food that will not further toxify my body. Why should only a woman of economic privilege have this option? As well, no where in the report did its author, L'Hirondelle contest that refugees and new immigrants not be entitled to these same benefits. Further, there is more of a global network of proponents of GLI/Basic income that support this idea internationally. I recommend that you reread the report and give deeper consideration to its implications. Respectfully, Yvonne H., Victoria, BC |
Letter to Vancouver Sun, Aletheia Caldwell |
As a participant in the Women's Economic Justice Report I was very offended by your statements regarding the 40 women who were interviewed. The person who is trivializing us is you Daphne! There is nothing wrong with the real stories of women and statistics from Revenue Canada. Certainly the message is for a global G.L.I.and to put it quite simply people need enough money to live a healthy dignified life. We cannot begin to end racism, classism, war, or save the environment until we end poverty with a Universal G.L.I.. So Daphne if you believe in a G.L.I. and have hundreds of different reasons from what we have discussed in the W.E.J.R. and at presentations on G.L.I., lets hear them. As for Cindy L'Horondelle I applaud her for her courage, dedication and and the immense amount of time and energy she has put into the project. I feel you owe Cindy and all of us an apology for your mistaken concepts and unfair bashing of us and the Women's Economic Justice Report for a Guranteed Livable Income. Sincerely, |
Bramham's mocking smear poor journalism To letters Vancouver Sun, Having recently attended Cindy L'Hirondelle's excellent presentation on the
Victoria Status of Women Action Group's Women's Economic Justice Project on
Guaranteed Livable Income, I expected some cogent argument from Daphne
Bramham. Instead, she gives us a made-up list of "bad company" Ms. L' Can't find anything about GLI in this heap. For the rest, Bramham seems to think a mocking tone is a suitable substitute for argument. Then, under pretence of sympathy, she practically calls the 40 real-world women in the Report fools for their views! Regarding "foreigners": "She has no intention of sharing the benefits." Bramham gets it backward. Reading what you're critiquing can be helpful, Ms. Bramham. LIFE (Livable Income For Everyone) has a website, should anyone care to check it out for themselves. http://www.livableincome.org/ Including its URL in the article would perhaps have been a little too much like "fair" or "balanced" for Bramham. I recommend it, because it discusses Guaranteed Income, whereas Bramham practices smear, and does it badly. Matt Fair |
Daphne Bramham speaks!! (but only to 3 of the letter writers) To Elaine, Daphne Bramham, Columnist, The Vancouver Sun To Debie, Regards, Daphne Bramham, Columnist, The Vancouver Sun To Jen, I do believe that a guaranteed annual income is needed because there are too many women and children living in poverty. But in order for any government and particularly this Conservative government to be convinced of that, it means making strong economic, social and political arguments for it. And my disappointment with the Victoria report is that it failed so miserably to do so. You might want to read the Victoria report and draw your own conclusions. Daphne Bramham, Columnist, The Vancouver Sun
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Denial of the reality of the poor biggest problem for the domination system I think the viciousness of the attack indicates that they are afraid of this solution catching on. Its just too practical in the face of all kinds of global crisis coming at once. This is actually a good sign. The denial of the reality of the poor is the biggest problem for the domination system, it is a glaring failure and this is why BC is a failed state among so many failed states. I heard about that TC reporter who was fired on the request of the Victoria Tourism group. The paper made a big mistake doing this, a very big mistake. Truth is powerful stuff and the GLI report is full of many different people's truth. The GLI is on its way, we actually have no choice, so hopefully sooner, rather than later, we will all be living very different lives based on life cycle economics instead of this death cycle stuff. Jen Fisher-Bradley, "Woman for Water" |
| Man's radio-active shit pile heap If she is so naive as to believe that Stephen Harper, or any other man at the top of the radio -active shit pile heap is in favor of helping women in any way (except Hugo Chavez maybe) then she is as thick as a plank about women's issues.
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Volunteer journalists are the future A woman doesn't have a right to quit an $18 an hour job because it's boring? That's an interesting point of view for a journalist to have. Last time I checked, we still lived in a free country where anyone was free to quit any job for any reason - though they may not qualify to collect government benefits afterwards. Ms. Bramham should take a look at how stress in the workplace impacts health statistics. She could also do some field research by spending a few years doing, say, full-time data entry. Let's pretend that it pays $18 an hour, though it usually pays considerably less. The first few days on a data entry job can be low-stress and downright relaxing. But I have a hunch that after a few months of typing columns of figures, or phone numbers and addresses, Ms. Bramham would decide that no amount of money could induce her to fritter away any more of her life at a task so intrinsically unrewarding!A GLI would allow Ms. Bramam - or her real-life $9-an-hour counterpart - a chance to escape that mind-killing job and try her hand at something more rewarding (say, journalism!). The GLI is bound to be just barely above the poverty line, so that job won't go unfilled. Someone else will want it for a while, until eventually they have had enough of it, too. The rare individuals who enjoy data entry are the ones who should end up holding such a job over the long term, while the workers who hate it and are stressed out by it should have an opportunity to quit before it makes them sick. The human and the financial cost will both be less in the long run. A GLI could dramatically reveal which jobs nobody likes to do, and how
grossly we underpay those workers for the misery they put themselves through
to get essential tasks done. Since lots of people would enjoy working as a
journalist, that could end up being a minimum-wage or even a volunteer job!
Now that the declining quality of newspaper reporting is sending more and
more people to the Internet for the real news, we are already seeing
volunteer journalists galore. |
Guaranteed Livable Income is a right to all peoples; man or woman, foreigner or not... Pathetic thinking, has been the devastation of the womens movement through-out the free thinking world. In Canada, we have only been allowed the vote since 1906, if I remember my history correctly. That's 100 years of privilege afforded previously, only to men. These champions that served their country and kept their spouses on leashes chained to household domesticity, continue to influence the economic flexibility of indiviuals in so far as suggesting that socio-economic equality is a topic for further thought. Guaranteed Livable Income is a right to all peoples; man or woman, foreigner or not. and... Reality speakes volumes. Specifically; goverment of the day, has provided for the future generations by eluding the facts of the genocide of peoples in other lands, occupied by the immigrants of history. MOVE IN & Take Over. Relligon, politics, posture; need I say more. It's a positive statement that someone like YOU exists in this reality.....July 27, 2006 P.S. please, forward all information on this GLI to me & I will check out, that site sent to me from you.Thank you. Linda Pagee, Edmonton, AB
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Anguished mother from the East Coast... I feel as mother if Stephen Harper's government paid mothers 2000 dollars per month plus 140. Dollars private health coverage, like blue cross, that children as well as their parents would be 100% better off then allowing women in the work place once they have had children until their children have grown up like 21 years of age it seems now better they seem ready to leave the nest of home. If you are a mother you have a full time job just being a mom and that some days could use a couple of extra people like themselves. We are down graded as women as being forced to work away from our children and pay someone else to raise our children this makes us as women only good enough to carry our babies nine month get them started after that we are not good enough or smart enough to stay home and raise our children it should not be a women's right to work outside the home once they have had children it should be against the law so that more children in our country are emotionally secure not drug-up but brought up by their mother especially then their father play an important role also. I am very angry at my husband's family forcing me to work outside the home with our children. I felt it would be better there was a law that stated that if a mother worked outside the home that her child(ren) she was forced to put the child(ren) out for adoption and I still feel strongly that way and especially the law should and must state if you adopt a child(ren) you are forbidden to work as you chose this child then you should be able to stay home and look after this child. Women are to hung up in their careers and motherhood and status tie alot times for second place. Women must be taught in school that a women's place is in the home raising her children not in the work place and paying someone else to raise their children and this would solve all the issues that you brought up in your letter that I just read. In --- it would lower the number of women working seasonal in order to stay at home in the winter as it does not pay to work out side the home as a parent on pei if you are only making $7.25 per hour as a cheep babysitter is a $100.00 per week and I have heard that this fall it will be going up $50.to $150. In order to cover the money Harper government promised them. It is in the right hands the parents hands not all of us beleive in daycare centers as I want them shut down and closed yesterday and I have had experiences with them and they are run like a farmer or herdman looking after a whole pen or cattle or pigs and when they are walking two by two down the street on a walk they look cattle been lead to the loading truck. I can help how I think I wonder if anyone else thinks how I do. from ## [east coast], Welfare moma haven |