It's a Remarkk-able life

215,000 people gathered to celebrate moderation, rationality and compromise. Jon Stewart did a great job. Andrew Sullivan did just as good with his analysis: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/10/an-apolitical-po...

Hat-tip to Mike Lewkowitz (@Igniter) for bringing this to my attention.

Toronto City councillor Giorgio Mammoliti's motion to defund Pride Toronto (PT) as punishment for its decision to rescind its ban on the words "Israeli apartheid" in Toronto's Pride parade passed at city council today after a vote of 36-1. But the motion was changed significantly before it came to a vote.  

In response to this news, I tweeted:

I was compelled to respond to a question from @chadandy on Twitter:

@remarkk Cuz the only way the gov't can be accountable is if it has some degree of authority over how the money is spent.

— Chad A. Craig (@chadandy) July 7, 2010

@remarkk So you think the gov't should not be held accountable to the public for how it spends our money?

— Chad A. Craig (@chadandy) July 7, 2010

Because I like and respect Chad, I thought I would put my thoughts down in a fuller form and invite him and others who share his feelings into a conversation.

My concern is not with the City's right to enforce its policies, it is about Mammoliti's motivations behind his original motion.

Clearly the City has every right, an obligation, to enforce its policies in all cases where the policy applies. This motion places particular scrutiny and extra pressure on Pride Toronto in its relationship with its diverse communities with a chilling "big brother is watching" message.

So why is this motion before Council in first place? Clearly, there are political motivations driving this scrutiny and we all know it. Mammoliti's original motion would have retroactively punished Pride TorontoI - if anyone has the text of that original motion, I'd love to see it.

The politics surrounding the words "Israeli apartheid" are central here and we all know it. I question whether it is fair to put the City Manager into the awkward position of having to adjudicate those politics.

I'm sure Chad would recognize that as well. So lets talk about the real issue, those words.

The City's "Declaration of a Non-discrimination Policy" for grant recipients states:

Declaration: On behalf of and with the authority of the organization named below, I hereby declare that this organization adopts and upholds the City of Toronto’s policy statement which prohibits discrimination and harassment and protects the right to be free of hate activity, based on age, ancestry, citizenship, creed (religion), colour, disability, ethnic origin, family status, gender identity, level of literacy, marital status, place of origin, membership in a union or staff association, political affiliation, race, receipt of public assistance, record of offences, sex, sexual orientation or any other personal characteristics by or within the organization.

So it appears to me, other than whatever normal compliance processes the City might apply to this policy, there should be a clear and transparent process to take up a complaint under this policy other than a Council motion. My reading of this is that it really is up to someone to establish through some kind of evidence that there is a violation of this policy in a particular case.

Could somebody who believes that the words "Israeli apartheid" are hate speech or the activities of QUAIA qualify as discrimination or harassment "by or within the organization" of Pride Toronto according to this policy please explain their position for me? Chad? Someone from Kulanu Toronto perhaps?

Am I inviting a flame war in the comments? I hope not, because I'm genuinely interested in a real conversation that sheds more light on this contentious issue.

Pride Toronto's board and executive appear hapless in the face of threats to their organization's funding that come with even greater threats to the community's core values. The ironic attempt to spin censorship as a form of inclusion is baffling and Orwellian, especially considering the history of Pride and the struggle for LGBT rights in Toronto and elsewhere. This crisis has the potential to tear Pride Toronto apart at the seams and is a caution to all of us about the state of free speech.

I wanted to add background relevant to the specific use of the words "Israeli apartheid" by QuAIA. Many see these words as inflammatory, which they no doubt are. But are they hate speech? Is there a truth within these words? How can we know unless we have free speech and open discourse?

You don't have to do much Googling to find factual, intelligent and hate-free analyses that show very effectively and clearly that Israel finds itself at a very difficult crossroads in its history. Perhaps the best recent example of this kind of analysis is that presented recently by John J Mearscheimer: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/mearsheimer300410.html

To summarize the argument: due to demographic factors, the ongoing rejection of a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine and a policy aimed at establishing so-called Greater Israel, Israel faces what appears to be an impossible existential dilemma. Either it will continue to be a democratic state or a Jewish state, but it will no longer be able to be both. Israel risks, according to Mearscheimer, becoming an "apartheid state". It is a grim, but very sober analysis.

The accretion of land in the occupied territories to Israel proper and settler communities along with the buffer zones and control points required for Israeli security create pockets of Bantustans across the West Bank. The lines between Israel and the occupied territories are being intentionally blurred by settlement activity, creating new "facts on the ground" which some Israelis see as important to increase bargaining leverage but are in fact disabling their ability to bargain.

If this "Greater Israel" is a de facto reality now or in the forseeable future, then the nature of that state should be seen plainly for what it is or might become. It is very reasonable to look to apartheid-era South Africa as a comparable kind of state.

This Greater Israel scenario is completely reasonable given an analysis of the available facts and a sober assessment of the probability of a final peace settlement based on the principle of two independent states living side by side. Even many who are defenders of Israel are (or should be) rightly concerned about its slide towards this Greater Israel future as a threat to the vision of modern Israel and an affront to both Jewish and liberal democratic values.

Stating this point of view and using the word apartheid has become a lightening rod for those who would banish this speech as unacceptable or hateful speech. It is clearly political speech. It is definitely aimed at influencing attitudes and opinions on issues of human rights and global politics. But hateful? Most definitely not.

How did we get to this point where freedom of speech and thought can be so threatened within the heart of a community's celebration of the very ideas of equality and freedom of expression? In the West, in Canada, in Toronto - the most diverse city on the planet?

We should all be concerned about the threat to free and open dialogue this case demonstrates, not only those of us who are queer or have an opinion about the future of Israel and Palestine.

EAVB_LVLSISCYXT

I had the pleasure of working alongside colleagues Daniel Rose, Ryan Coleman, Liisa Sorsa and Disa Kauk to bring various kinds of participatory engagement for the Collingwood Conference 2010: Imagining Ontario's Future. This was a long-term focused ideas conference put on by the Ontario Liberal Party, organized by Laura Miller and wrangled by Kelly Legris.

We all enjoyed bringing our skills to the table with a large and very professionally-run conference like this one, with its clear connection to important public policy issues and the challenges of our shared future. These are the kinds of issues that my practice was created to help address by bringing social technologies (both digital and analog) to enable participation, public engagement and collaborative problem-solving for the public good.

I remain an agnostic non-partisan, but I have to say that I was genuinely impressed that a provincial political party was willing and able to create a large-scale event like this with big ideas, bold content and then share it with the world in new ways. Hearing personally from the Premier himself that he appreciated the participatory nature of the event was very gratifying.

The conference was a hit online, with live streaming video and online discussion, it was the #2 or #3 trending topic on Twitter in Canada most of the weekend. The liveblog took almost 5,000 comments!

The in-person experience was as (ok, more) important as the online experience, so we brought a variety of graphic facilitation methods, included beautiful live graphic recording of Friday night's keynote addresses from the Premier and Malcolm Gladwell by Liisa and Disa and a massive 500-person sticky note theming exercise.

You can see all the conference content (session videos are still being uploaded) by visiting http://www.cc2010.ca/. Check out the participant-created interviews on the YouTube channel and the great shots created throughout the conference on Flickr. And you can still follow the ongoing conversation on Twitter at #cc2010.

A pretty convincing lead held by the bike lane.

Mr. Tory, thank you for taking on this important question about the state of our public discourse. I share your concerns. I believe that if we wait for our politicians to change, then we will be waiting a long time. I second your call for citizens to ENGAGE EACH OTHER, and by doing so, to shift the context within which our politicians do their work.

In our communities and neighbourhoods, we are too often separated. Politeness in Toronto has all too often meant disengagement with each other, respect made easy by social distance. Our problems and their possible solutions have become increasingly complex, intertwined and dependent upon each other, but our governments, our politics and our social norms have worked to keep us apart and unaware of each other. So how will we change the conversation we have about this city we share?

I believe that we have methods and technologies to help change this. We can democratize the process of public dialogue. We can enable citizens to host each other in meaningful conversations. We can connect those conversations and those people to one another across time and space in a vast and diverse city.

In a city as large and diverse as Toronto, we need to become leaders in the world in terms our ability as a society to engage one another meaningfully. This requires a new kind of civic leadership, where citizens take ownership and initiative to convene their neighbours in important conversations about our shared future.

Thank you for raising this issue and opportunity. The ChangeCamp community is working to take up your challenge. We are working to develop a toolkit and program for citizen-led civic engagement in the weeks leading up to the October elections and beyond, and we would welcome your active participation in the project.

I think the ChangeCamp community and project could have a strong potential ally in Mr. Tory and the Toronto City Summit Alliance. What do you think?

A Conservative MPP wants Toronto to become Canada's 11th province.

Bill Murdoch, MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound says rural Ontario is fighting a losing battle against what he calls "a Toronto mentality."

He wants residents who live in the Greater Toronto Area to remain part of Ontario, while Toronto becomes its own province.

Murdoch should pay attention to his own backyard and ask himself why creative young people leave his riding for the south. I'm one of them. I grew up knowing that I'd have to leave, because I just didn't "fit". Smart queer boys with big dreams and gentle creative spirits don't fit the vision of Murdoch's Ontario of rural monoculture.

My hometown of Owen Sound sits in a pretty little corner of Grey County, cradling a beautiful part of Georgian Bay. From Toronto or south-western Ontario, Owen Sound acts as a gateway to the Bruce Peninsula and the beautiful sunsets of the Lake Huron shoreline.

The area is typified by socially conservative attitudes stuck in another century and a lack of opportunity for young people. Murdoch's romantic idealism for rural past glories is not helping Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound thrive in the new century.

Murdoch's perfect Ontario without Toronto would keep the 905 region surrounding Toronto. He needs to get a bit of Economic Geography 101. Toronto and the urban agglomeration around it operate as a single integrated economic unit. If we're going to separate Toronto, we should also separate the entire Greater Toronto Area.

If Toronto were to become a province, it is rural Ontario that would suffer the most. It would lose the economic welfare benefits of taxation over the richest and most economically vibrant part of the province. The rest-of-Ontario would become a poverty-stricken rural rump saddled with an aging population, high healthcare and social welfare costs and insufficient economic activity to pay for it all.

Luckily for him, Murdoch's dream is unlikely to come true.