Dru Oja Jay for MEC board

25 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2011-03-08 21:52

AmyinMontreal

Hi folks! I wanted to share with you info on the important campaign to have my comrade Dru Oja Jay elected on the board of directors for Mountain Equipment Co-operative! Voting runs until March 31st 2011.

http://mec.dru.ca/

Chances are you have probably shopped at MEC once in your life and therefore you are a member. If you haven't I bet you know someone who has! Forgot your membership number? So did I but after 40 seconds on the phone with them they found the info I needed to vote! Dru will need about 10'000 votes to win and so it is crucial that every person across Canada that cares about building strong cooperatives as well as social and climate justice vote for Dru.

https://mec-vote.selfservice.anywhere.telus.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?langue=eng

Dru is running on a platform based on four main principles and I invite you to check out his site to learn about his positions on these themes.

Democratic participation of the membership
Effective environmental advocacy
Support for cooperatives
Social justice and strengthening our commitment to ethics

I believe in Dru's ability to push MEC to stop purchasing products from war profiteer's and to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign that 171 Palestinian civil society groups called on to end the occupation.

I believe in Dru's capacity to educate MEC members how the current $2 million environmental fund used is supporting SUNCOR and promoting the expansion of tar sands in Alberta.

Dru is a tireless organizer who continues to help dozens of groups and campaigns across Canada. If there is one person I trust to put the pressure on MEC it is him. I hope you will take the 2 minutes to vote for him and please consider emailing your friends and passing along the info on twitter and facebook.

In solidarity and struggle,
Amy

Issues Pages:

Tue, 2011-03-08 22:39

NDPP

SUNCOR is not only in the tarsands but Libya as well. Dru is exactly the right guy for the job!

Wed, 2011-03-09 09:30

Snert

Thanks for signing up for babble's totally free advertising service.

Wed, 2011-03-09 09:52

Caissa

LMFAO, Snert.

Wed, 2011-03-09 10:33

Freedom 55

Thanks, Amy. I voted for him last week, and have been spreading the word too.

Welcome to the board. I know you could kick some ass in here if you find the time in your schedule to become a regular poster.

Wed, 2011-03-09 11:29

Catchfire

I feel like this is akin to poltical campaigning for, say, the NDP that regularly goes on this site. The concerned party does not stand to gain financially and I think babblers might be interested to know about this campaign. So for the time being, I'm going to give this the benefit of the doubt, even though it's basically spam.

Just so you know, Amy, if you ever come back to read this, this is not usually how things are done here.

Wed, 2011-03-09 13:18

Snert

Quote:

Just so you know, Amy, if you ever come back to read this, this is not usually how things are done here.

Surely if this Dru fellow puts his pants on both legs at a time, and can make a three minute egg in two minutes, he'll do the right thing and send babble a donation in exchange for this advertisement?

Amy? Does that sound responsible and fair?

Wed, 2011-03-09 13:56

jas

Catchfire wrote:

I feel like this is akin to poltical campaigning for, say, the NDP that regularly goes on this site. The concerned party does not stand to gain financially and I think babblers might be interested to know about this campaign.

Except that threads aren't typically started exclusively to hype a single candidate. Maybe once in a while a candidate happens to be a Babbler as well. Also, political candidates are part of a much larger team that is supposed to speak for its constituency, and information about the contending candidates is usually easily available.

There's something else that bothers me about the OP that I can't quite put my finger on. Something about board politics that I think shouldn't be allowed to be promoted on Babble. I think the potential influence is too great, and for a candidate and issue that we know little about and have a harder time informing ourselves. Although it's a co-operative, MEC is a business and functions in many ways like a private organization. We don't know that board members don't stand to gain something from their involvement.

Perhaps if the issue of the MEC board election had been presented first, and why this is even an issue we should care about, it might not seem so much like private promotion.

Wed, 2011-03-09 13:59

AmyinMontreal

Hi everyone,

Interesting discussion!

I was invited to post this about this here by one of Rabble.ca's staff.

If it's inappropriate, perhaps the moderator can delete it or move it?

Wed, 2011-03-09 14:03

#10

Snert

Quote:

I was invited to post this about this here by one of Rabble.ca's staff.

I think we can rule out the accountant.

Wed, 2011-03-09 14:09

#11

Ripple

I consider Dru Oja Jay's campaign for the MEC board to be activism and hear about it through several grassroots networks. I may have put it in a different forum, but don't think it's inappropriate.

Wed, 2011-03-09 14:24

#12

Freedom 55

AmyinMontreal wrote:

If it's inappropriate

Not at all. It's just babblers being babblers.

Wed, 2011-03-09 14:34

#13

Snert

Quote:
I consider Dru Oja Jay's campaign for the MEC board to be activism

Sorry, but did you mean to type "consumerism"?

Because last I checked, MEC is where yuppies buy their overpriced gore-tex tents, not a charity, NGO or political office.

Wed, 2011-03-09 14:48

#14

Caissa

Snert, are you about to announce your candidacy for the Board of the Royal Bank?

Wed, 2011-03-09 14:51

#15

AmyinMontreal

MEC gives $2 million/year to environmental groups in Canada.

Wed, 2011-03-09 15:00

#16

Ripple

Do you even bother to read anyone's posts, Snert? No, MEC is not a charity, an NGO, a political office. It is a co-operative. Did you read Dru's platform?

Wed, 2011-03-09 15:01

#17

Left Turn

Dru Oja Jay supports the campaign to get MEC to stop carrying Israeli products, especially the Source Vagabond hydration packs that are used by the Israeli military. As I understand it, this is one of the main reasons that Dru put himself forward as a candidate for the MEC board. I know that the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (Vancouver based group) has endorsed Dru's candidacy, and possibly some of the other pro-Palestine groups in Canada have endorsed his candidacy as well. So this is totally an activist campaign, totally the sort of campaign that a lot of people who read babble would care about.

Wed, 2011-03-09 15:16

#18

Snert

Quote:
No, MEC is not a charity, an NGO, a political office. It is a co-operative.

Yup. A member-owned store that sells things people don't really need. So?

Quote:
Did you read Dru's platform?

Nope. Will it shed some light on why rabble should be providing him with free advertising?

Quote:
So this is totally an activist campaign, totally the sort of campaign that a lot of people who read babble would care about.

Like most babblers, I believe in recycling and reusing things rather than tossing them in a landfill.

So may I have some free ad space to promote my "activist" yard sale?

Wed, 2011-03-09 18:22

#19

Freedom 55

Left Turn wrote:

I know that the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (Vancouver based group) has endorsed Dru's candidacy, and possibly some of the other pro-Palestine groups in Canada have endorsed his candidacy as well.

Yes, Tadamon! also [url=http://www.tadamon.ca/post/8575]supports his candidacy[/url]: "We agree with the many goals that Dru would like to achieve, not least his desire to strengthen MEC’s commitment to ethical sourcing. In this regard, what is especially important to Tadamon! is Dru’s goal to build on ongoing efforts to convince members of the Co-op to vote to prohibit the sale of products made in Israel at MEC stores in Canada."

And that's why BUYcott Israel, a project of the Canada-Israel Committee, is actively [url=http://buycottisrael.ca/alerts/actions/buycott-israel-alert-mec-vote-2/]... against him[/url]. Read Dru's response [url=http://mec.dru.ca/buycott-response]here[/url].

Wed, 2011-03-09 18:52

#20

kim elliott kim elliott's picture

Hey, I'm glad Amy posted this here - I suggested she post on the appeal on babble. Its an initiative that I hadn't heard much about, and something that I figured activists and MEC shoppers and members who read babble would be interested in, and could ask Amy questions about. Maybe the thread title could have been about the broader context... but it seems like something we should be talking about, no?

Wed, 2011-03-09 19:15

#21

NDPP

I support his activism on behalf of BDS and an attempt to stop Mountain Equipment Coop from dealings with Israel, which is pretty much what this is all about. He's a good guy, well known in the activist community and as this is a progressive board, it's not inappropriate that his little run gets a boost here - although it'd probably have worked better as a BDS advocacy piece on the Rabble Frontpage. I don't deal with MEC - overpriced, yuppie-scum stuff, not to mention the IDF thing.

Mon, 2011-03-28 19:50

#22

Freedom 55

Just a reminder that the vote closes at noon Pacific time on March 31st.

http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/redeye/2011/03/activist-and-journalist-r...

Mon, 2011-03-28 20:37

#23

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

The churlishness of some people here is sickening.

A well-known left activist runs on a political platform for the board of directors of a co-op that has been unsuccessfully targeted by the BDS campaign; when babblers are asked to support his candidacy, we accuse the campaign of spam? WTF?

Or is this just a way of people expressing their opposition to the BDS campaign without having the courage to come right out and say so?

Mon, 2011-03-28 21:35

#24

druojajay

Thanks for the props, Amy.

Everyone: please do vote in the MEC election. And think about running in the next one. $2 million/year earmarked for environmental groups with a conservation mandate could make a massive difference in the state of environmental organizing in Canada. Given that we're setting precedents with the tar sands that -- if applied everywhere --will contribute considerably to frying the planet, that could be a good thing.

I'm happy to answer any questions folks have about the campaign, here.

Thu, 2011-04-28 11:10

#25

Ripple

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H82vYJUcCXI][color=red]Dru Oja Jay responds to results of MEC board elections[/color][/url]

For those who don't want to/can't download, Dru did not win a seat on the MEC board.