I suggest you look at joining the Council of Canadians, as their 'push' seems to be pretty close to what you describe and why re-invent the wheel. No organization is going to agree on everything, however. In Mexico the Zapatista movement is probably too radical for most canadians, however, there are zapatista movements IN canada if you are near a big city, and you can always start one. <br /> <br /> The big problem here is their mandate:<br /> <i>"demand that the revolutionary armed forces not intervene in matters of civil order or the disposition of capital relating to agriculture, commerce, finances, and industry, as these are the exclusive domain of the civil authorities, elected freely and democratically." And said that the people should "acquire and possess arms to defend their persons, families and property, according to the laws of disposition of capital of farms, commerce, finance and industry, against the armed attacks committed by the revolutionary forces or those of the government."</i><br /> <br /> <br /> To be armed and protect one's home is probably far too radical for the majority of urban canadians and would certainly provide fodder to the media as a 'revolutionary' force, which is hardly a good thing in Canada. <br /> <br /> To sing my tired old song, what is most interesting about the zapatista movement, to me, is that there is no leader, there is no 'party'. It is a movement, which is exactly what the progressives of the early part of last century were, and I encourage everyone to do some reading on their tactics, which brought about most of our social programs. Direct democracy serves all those functions and provides a place for you, the individual, to start. Namely running a direct democracy in your riding. This in effect accomplishes what the zapatista's are trying to do and you don't have to seize any towns to do it. What is interesting is that the arming of the individual is not that different from what the most direct democracy-Switzerland does, where every male serves briefly in the armed forces, then trains regularly and has a weapon in his home. It was in the main due to this that Switzerland avoided being overrun by germans who were used to fighting a standing army at some location, then with that victory gained the entire country. Every swiss is trained to fight to the death. <br /> <br /> However, as a final note I think you're appeal to university's is misguided, those days are long gone. However, it does depend which university. Having close contacts at several universities I can tell you that it is extremely difficult to gather any kind political action-no doubt yet another reason 'they' want foreign students. <br /> <br /> If you want numbers and the guts that go with it then check out indymedia and poverty and environmental groups, these are seasoned pros with a concrete agenda. A 'vague umbrella group' would be hard to mobilize people behind if they dont' know what the heck they are acting against. People are notorious difficult to 'activate', I'm fairly active and sympathetic to most causes, but often find it difficult to 'get inspired'. <br /> <br /> Finally, that is the chief problem with this website, to me of course, and it's not my website so I don't care, is that the problems we face are made by canadians, not americans. Even if the US were somehow 'forcing' our politicians to act, it is still they who are acting, and good luck trying to dismantle the great american empire. What can be changed is canada, albeit with difficulty.

   

"Finally, that is the chief problem with this website, to me of course, and it's not my website so I don't care, is that the problems we face are made by canadians, not americans."<br /> <br /> Many of our problems ARE made by Americian policy, however I agree that.....<br /> "What can be changed is canada, albeit with difficulty."<br /> <br /> We must be carefull to ensure that we seperate Americian policy from American people, like any other nation there are many there that agree with much of the anti bush comments made here!

   

The Council of Canadians is not an umbrella group encompassing several other groups, it is a single organization that deals with several issues. That's not what is rightly being suggested by lesouris, ie that some sort of umbrella or network be created. And in fact, Vive is currently a small part of a push with the Polaris Institute, the Council of Canadians and other groups to create some sort of national network or something that can allow us all to coordinate efforts and strategy to oppose "deep integration". What this will look like in actual reality is still uncertain; we are all supposed to reply to a report/reply form by March 24 2005 to in essence vote on how we think it should be organized and what part we want our own organizations to play.<br /> <br /> I think we are all very aware that we must stay clear of xenophia and racist nationalisms, which is part of the reason for Vive's policy against discrimination/hate, and of course those groups are not being invited to this larger network we're creating.<br /> <br /> Vive is very open to coordinating with sovereignty movements elsewhere, and indeed within Canada itself; also part of the umbrella strategy I just mentioned will likely be to form connections with other movements. For me the question for Vive specifically is just, OK, if we want to do that, how? Who do we contact, what do we do specifically to work with other movements? Because if you want us to do that I'm likely the one who will have to actually do it and I don't know where to start, and I don't have a lot of time to do it. <br /> <br /> As for Vive being a place to "discuss things and never do anything", first, I want to say that education on these issues is extremely important, as is a place to create public debate about them, Discussion, in other words, is a crucial part of our mission and accomplishes a lot, esp since the mainstream corporate media is MUCH more willing to publish what the big corporations want them to say (see for eg their reaction to Canada saying no to missile defence, despite the fact that it was a decision most Canadians supported). Most Canadians have never heard of "deep integration", pure and simple, and unless we talk about it they never will.<br /> <br /> As for us "never" taking action, what about the census boycott? What about missile defence? What about the actions section where we (and others) post actions happening all over Canada on these issues? Those actions were, and are, directed specifically at Canadian decision-makers on Canadian issues. We're not petitioning George Bush here.<br /> <br /> Most of all, I want to point out that this IS your site. You use it, you post to it, so you "own" it as much as I do. We've set it up specifically so that you can have input and create the content yourself. Yet everyone is always willing and ready to complain about it and what's wrong with it, but rarely if EVER does anyone volunteer to work on it, whether on the board or as a volunteer in another capacity. That includes by suggesting actions and helping us run them. But our organization is open to and would LOVE your help and input at every level, from the board of directors where we make decisions to proofing/editing/writing, creating/running actions and campaigns, to actually coding the site etc etc etc. We have some great volunteers but compared to how many people visit the site and use it they are a tiny proportion of the Vive community. Remember, Vive is entirely a labour of love created and run by a very few people who are already over-committed, over-worked, and have never been paid a penny for what they do here. We all have other day jobs and lives outside of this site and can only accomplish so much with the limited time and money we have. So if you have complaints, my suggestions are always a) if you want to see better content, write and submit it and b) if you want to make the site better, donate or volunteer. For example, the website is all open source and a mildly motivated programmer could easily code some new features or make the ones we have better. But no one ever does.<br /> <br /> That goes for us creating/being part of a larger umbrella movement and any other suggestions as well. I couldn't afford to fly to the initial meeting for the new umbrella network because I am not myself wealthy nor did we have enough money as an organization to pay for it. And it would help us be more able to be involved/create actions as part of that network if we had more volunteers/board members around to make the connections and do the work. It would also make it more possible for us to coordinate more with other groups across the world if someone/some people would volunteer to coordinate that. Etc etc etc.<br /> <br /> Are you seeing my point here? Suggestions are great, but if you want to see them put into action, it's really best and most effective to offer your own time and energy and help us do it. If you don't volunteer to help us accomplish things, then what right do you have to complain that we don't accomplish enough?<br />

   

I just watched "A Passionate Voice For The Farmer: The Story Of Nettie Wiebe" on Vision. She ran for NDP premiership of Saskatchewan and again for the NDP Federally in 2004. What a woman she is. I have no idea what Saskatchewan was thinking when they passed her by. Crazy. Anyway she started a group called Via Campesina North America, a "peasant way", farm movement. She may be a source for a place to start for contacts. Also I have mentioned the Earth Charter on here before and that organization may be where we need to direct our municipalities, provinces and federal government. I believe them to be a "global" umbrella that could help us subvert some of the transnationals powers if we utilized them as a training device. Here's the link and try as I may using Jesse's instructions it will not show up blue which I know is a working link. Sorry. <br /> www.earthcharter.org/files/charter/charter/.pdf</a><br /> <br />

   

Actually, I think I figured out what I was doing wrong.<br /> Here's that link again.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.earthcharter.org/files/charter/charter.pdf">www.earthcharter.org/files/charter/charter.pdf</a>