Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Hello to all who visit this page! I am Alan Blanes, in Kelowna British Columbia, Canada. My phone number is 250-300-8400. As a supporter of the Idle No More movement, I feel that a legal clinic network that upholds the universal rights of all people - and does not attempt to segment populations into eligible for service and those that are brushed off - has proven to not work for the goal of social solidarity - in fact just the opposite. We have to look first of all at how and why the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have to been adopted into society.

Posted to a Rutgers University social media thread "Cure Care Community" http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showthread.php?29443-Paraplegic-murder-victim-hard-to-kill: I am glad it did get resurrected, KiranA. I worked with Doug Klein, when he was the Executive Director of the Handicapped Housing Society of Alberta [HHSA] - based in Edmonton, and he was based in that office during his tenure in the early 1980s. What happened to Doug is a very close allegory to what happened to the HHSA in later years. The control by the membership - in a member-controlled, democratic organization that organized, constructed and managed housing by and for people with disabilities - was itself murdered, by a clique of privatizing gangsters who were on the executive committee and who used the Edmonton Police Service to invade and intimidate the members into silence - in meetings that were to discuss an audit review of the management. This audit review had been voted for overwhelmingly at the 1996 Annual General Meeting of the society.

In early 1997, members who were in agreement with this audit review were threatened with ejection from meetings and were accused of "being with" Alan Blanes and threatened with criminal harassment and trespassing charges if they were wanting to address the issues surrounding the need for this audit review, which as necessitated due to flagrant abuses being perpetrated by this gang of self seeking, poverty-industry, malfeasors.

As a member who was elected to this board at the 1996 AGM, I was told that I would not be allowed to serve on this board - even though I am a life membership holder - who had been a life membership holder for over a decade. I was charged with criminal harassment and told I would not be allowed to attend any meetings of the society - and anyone who agreed with me was facing the same kinds of intimidation. When my trial for criminal harassment came up, I was kidnapped by the Edmonton Police Service and held 100 miles away from the city. I was able to smuggle out of this holding facility, 2 memos that I had exchanged with the administration - where I told them the court room that I was to be at and the time and date of this trial. I was told in both of these memos that I had nowhere to go.

This created a sensation of fear and silence among the members and residents of this society. When the Law Enforcement Review Board held a hearing on the complaint about the police invading the AGM of 1997, and threatening anyone who would utter my name, the tribunal ruled that the matter was so trivial that it didn't warrant a finding of any liability to the officers that were used as armed thugs in that meeting. This is the kind of systemic murder that the interests of people with disabilities have had to endure in Alberta. Even though the province now has a social democratic government, it is so intertwined with poverty industry organizations that rely on dependent and passive clients, that it will take some strategizing and outside questioning, to give the Alberta government the will to do anything to correct the record of dehumanization that has occurred on many levels.

With the crushing of the role of the HHSA as a consumer action group, and to enable it to be a closed shop racketeering outfit, the record of on-going acts of hate and violence has continued. In one of the properties run by the agency, 114 Gravelle, a lady who had to use her own fire extinguisher to put out a fire in the laundry room - due to the illegal keeping of the fire extinguisher locked up, this woman was rewarded by being evicted. The reason for this is because the tenants were rallying around her with their grievances - since the criminal management was giving them all the deaf ear. This was in 2005. In 2006, all the memberships of everyone including life members, were summarily cancelled by the executive director. There was a task force of members organized in June of that year to resist this abuse, and to overturn this arbitrary theft of the society from its members. Unfortunately, two weeks after this task force was struck - the woman elected to head it [Dorothy Heppler], one of the HHSA founders, passed away. This left the project in limbo these past 11 years. The following year, the project in Red Deer Alberta - 100 miles south of Edmonton was sold under false pretenses for private condos, and the tenants had to disperse.

There is a lot of evil and corruption surrounding the whole history of the bad faith, that was accorded the disabled population in Alberta by the poverty industry, and complicit government, and the after effects of fear and intimidation. The murderer who killed Doug Klein was operating in the same vein, just a difference of degree.

In order make a positive use from all this pain and unfairness, we need to get a project under way over the whole continent that restores the goal of universal human rights. This began after WWII in order to acculturate the customs in society that would immunize it from systemic barbarism. The goal was worthy - and eventually we got the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Unfortunately, by the time countries began to adopt this Covenant, it was only by very weak lip service - such as an order in council by the federal Canadian government - with no willingness to give it treaty status. It even got less far in the US with regard to becoming an entrenched part of the supreme human rights law that serves as an interpretive code for constitutional rights. Americans need to revisit this whole saga, and understand that there is a Universal Declaration of Human Rights because the world said that it wanted different customs that would prevent barbaric dehumanization.

It took me a year to get the court to vacate my conviction for criminal harassment - with the court finding that there was absolutely no evidence to substantiate this charge. The members of the society have witnessed even worse warehousing that when the society was founded in 1972. We need to find a way to get universal human rights back on the public agenda so that standards of practice and care may be protected. I have began a discussion page on Loomio on creating a network of community legal clinics that are founded on the principles of universal human rights. The link: https://www.loomio.org/g/Mj68lTfQ/universal-human-rights-legal-clinic-network

Popcorn Trails over Rocky Terrain: ~ April 12, 2017 ~ email sent to a fine gentleman today.
I’m a SHOW vs. TELL kinda person & prefer current events and approaches.

Good Morning Dave :

AND, I do apologize right up front. I only FOUND this situation ~ others committed the acts.

When I landed here in 2010 I found Municipal corruption and fraud ~ simply put.
Councillors and others not on the tax roll (and not paying municipal taxes like everyone else)
Others being ‘favored’ in HUGE reductions of tax billings or no bill at all, utilities billings favoritisms, a very long list of Criminal Code behaviours. Still more being OVER charged in Municipal Taxes and abused through their ignorance of improper procedures. We have the records (public and otherwise) that clearly SHOW this to be fact. This is not opinion or accusation.

As I ALWAYS start with Hanlons Razor (just means a philosophy) which states :

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, OR said differently
Don’t assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding “

That being said . . . there are about 12 people here that could land with a Criminal Record if pushed ~ some even jail time. THAT is never my goal. I think it is just humane (in the way I think and operate) to give people a chance to correct their wrong doings. Through my pushes over the last 7 years MUCH of the wrong & improper procedures HAVE BEEN corrected and no, we’re not done yet. Aside from proper procedures still needed . . . surely no reconciliation for those wronged has even been discussed;
nor have those that SHOULD have been writing proper cheques, written any, or refunds offered.

We’ve just run an illegal procedures municipal by-election here through the guidance of a dysfunctional/incompetent CAO and Council blindly following such advice.
There was no choice in this one, and a police report has been filed.

Four men in history didn’t think I meant what I (and a few thousand other people in the mix) were saying in this way. Those four guys are now in jail for 12 years each. We gave them lots of opportunity to do the right thing over about 10 years; they didn’t.
They thought we were blowing smoke too.

If you think I’m happy about any of this ~ think again. It is only with a broken heart for the people that have lived here (many always, from birth until now) that this is what I found upon my arrival.
I truly can’t imagine being one of THOSE people (such as yourself)

I respect you Dave; always have. You and family have always been kind, generous and very neighbourly. I’ve watched you give very high labour for the community in a number of ways. I’m ticked at how you’ve been treated.

I want water agreements. I want transparency. I want open and clear communication. I want lawful behaviours. I want fiscal responsibility. I want a community that functions in a healthy and kind civilized manner. If anyone is speaking out against my personhood ~ they are against what I wish for all of us.

Nothing of integrity can be built with people living in fear and lack. The acronym for F.E.A.R I’ve always appreciated is:

Future Event Appearing Real . . . for some in the mix, a Criminal Record could become real and therefore the fear is real.

BJ MacMillan

I am very glad that you have posted a message, BJ - I will be very happy to reply during the daytime.