the cethirien journals

Another Stolen Election: Mexico

2006-07-07T17:43:00.000-04:00

John Ross and Greg Palast have the goods on how the Mexican election was stolen from PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In a scene reminiscent of the US 2000 Presidential Elections, millions of votes were made to disappear, and a complete ballot-by-ballot recount rebuffed by both the government and the election authorities that are also under the thumb of the government. It seems also that every trick was pulled to suppress the left vote in keeping with Mexico's history but also learning new techniques from the US.

What to do? There will be street protests on Saturday, but the media has already beginning mounting a campaign in support of the "official" winner, the PAN candidate Calderon. Things might get hairy -- will the Mexican people let their rights be trampled, or will they stand up the orchestrated attempt to dispossess them once again?

[Palast | Ross]

While Ross has been reporting from Mexico, Palast will fly in again to investigate the story even deeper.

Another Tragedy: The Bulldozing of the South Central Farms

2006-06-18T11:49:00.000-04:00

I know it may be too late to avoid the worst of it, but a highly successful community garden in the impoverished community of south central LA has been almost bulldozed. One of the only big green spaces left in that city, the supposed "owner" is clearing the land to make way for warehouses, after at least 14 years of the US's biggest urban farm existing at that site. However, there is still a chance as the deal itself is coming up for questioning in court.

Here's the details (from Indymedia LA)

Los Angeles Police Forcibly Evict and Bulldoze the South Central Farm

Despite widespread popular resistance, including years of struggle against the city and developers on the part of farmers, a three-week old occupation and treesit, a successful effort to raise millions of dollars in order to try to buy the land on which the farm stood - a bid which was ultimately rejected, and a day full of nonviolent civil disobedience including lockdowns and blockades, the largest urban farm in the United States was evicted on the morning of June 13th.

The farm, which had been started on property taken from developers under eminent domain laws after the 1992 popular uprising following the videotaped police beating of Rodney King, and which provided healthy food for over three hundred and fifty families as well as an ecologically sustainable model for building urban economy and community with dignity in the midst of poverty, was destroyed by bulldozers today to make way for the construction of commercial warehouses serving the (activists speculate that Wal-Mart maybe the primary intended beneficiary.)

Los Angeles Indymedia is reporting that at least 45 people have been (in many cases violently) arrested while defending the farm from re-enclosure and destruction. Many Hollywood celebrities came out to support the farm, including getting arrested, but to no avail.

[South Central Farmers]

2004 Elections Were Stolen

2006-06-01T22:25:00.000-04:00

Rolling Stone finally got the theft of the 2004 US presidential election out into the open with a hard hitting article by Robert Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. details the mountain of evidence that points to a broad based effort to rig the elections, all the way from hacking the electronic voting machines to various dirty tricks to reduce the Kerry's vote count and pump up Bush's. In fact, the list of dirty deeds is so extensive, that even one of them would delegitimize the current occupant of the White House.

The last two presidential elections have been fateful for the future of the US and for the planet. If they were stolen, and there is every indication that they were, then we are currently living through the nightmare of one the greatest real world conspiracies in human history.

Return of Gore?

2006-06-01T11:22:00.000-04:00

While Gore is not a radical figure, his new found voice over the last few years against the Iraq War and the shredding of the Constitution by the Bush Administration have been commendable. His crusade on global warming as witnessed in the new documentary An Inconvenient Truth, is also significant and will hopefully make an impact.

With the 2008 presidential elections looming, Al Gore is increasingly looking like the only man who could save the American Republic from its forced implosion under the Bush Imperium. Hillary Clinton is already tilting heavily to the right, and would continue Bush's aggressive policies, especially in the Middle East. Al Gore at least had realized the folly of rampant militarism, even as he was a hawk while Senator.
He is also a consummate believer in the system, and thus represents something of a last chance for the old Republic to redeem itself.

His turn on Saturday Night Live (QT) on May 14th was hilarious, but also poignant for what could have been...

Here's Gore in an interview in the Guardian.

WP: Canada Pays Environmentally for U.S. Oil Thirst

2006-06-01T11:17:00.000-04:00

Interesting, a sympathetic Washington Post article on the devastating being wrought in Alberta, although the environmental toll is not really wholly unexpected:

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta -- Huge mines here turning tarry sand into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly high environmental toll, sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming.
WP

A Story of Independence takes Cannes

2006-05-30T23:47:00.000-04:00

Leftist British director Ken Loach's latest film, Wind that Shakes the Barley, won the Palme D'Or (highest film award) at Cannes this year.

Eery in its parallels to modern day Iraq, this historic film tells the story of Ireland's War for Independence (1919-1922) the tragic aftermath of civil war that pitted various factions of the freedom fighters against one another. While the contemporary political relevance is palpable, the film also provides important social commentary missing from other films such as Michael Collins.

Check [Harry Browne's review in Counterpunch], for an indepth look at the film.

Arundhati Roy on Democracy Now

2006-05-25T11:04:00.000-04:00

Arundhati Roy, the eloquent writer-activist, recently sat in a session of Democracy Now!, speaking at length and in greate detail about India, Iraq, U.S. Empire and Dissent. Her unequivocal support of resistance marks her as a genuinely fearless figure in a time of intimidation and threat against all dissenters.

Roy also recently spoke in the Hindu about the "rising fury across the country" against the corporatist rule of the Manmohan Singh regime. While providing a relief from the creeping fascism of the BJP years, Congress has only renewed the neoliberal project with an even more pronounced tilt to the US. This is perhaps one of the reasons that contributed to the massive Left victories in state elections this past month.

Two Giants Pass Away

2006-05-11T10:23:00.000-04:00

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist, former ambassador to India, and advisor to presidents from FDR to Clinton, recently passed away at the ripe old age of 97. See commentary here and here

Jane Jacobs, urban critic and community activist, also recently passed away at the age of 89. See commentary here and here.

What should be noted that both Galbraith's Affluent Society and Jane Jacobs' Dark Age Ahead, are even more relevant today as India and China's exploding middle classes binge on crass consumerism, without the necessary reinvestment into the public domain. So instead of all around development, you see pockets of private wealth surrounded by public squalor, as both countries repeat the same mistakes as the Western World.

Also, the motor-vehicle led development is leading to a dangerous over-dependence and over-consumption of oil. More pollution, more unhealthy sedentary lifestyles, and a faster speed of life might mean mobility, but at a huge cost.

Galbraith, a Canadian who settled in the US, and Jacobs, an American who settled in Canada, represent two visions that must be heeded as our global civilization approaches a decisive turning point.

Geographic illiteracy in the US

2006-05-03T12:17:00.000-04:00

Incredible...

"Take Iraq, for example. Despite nearly constant news coverage since the war there began in 2003, 63 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 failed to correctly locate the country on a map of the Middle East. Seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel."

"Nine in ten couldn't find Afghanistan on a map of Asia."

Shouldn't you know where a country is located before destroying it? Can't even respect that??

link

Water Wars in India

2006-04-12T22:54:00.000-04:00

The path of corporatism (or outright fascism) that is being pursued in India goes way beyond mere neoliberalism. There, the "privatization of water, nationalization of rivers" is bringing state and corporate power together in a bid to usurp the resource rights of citizens. In this counterpunch article, P. Sainath gives and overview of the emerging struggles against corporations and the state alike.

Theocracy ascendant?

2006-04-10T23:12:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I blogged here, as I've been busy with many things (including other blogs and websites!). I found the following article however rather startling, especially as it appeared in the Washington Post which has been the most serious mainstream press cheerleader of the Iraq war up until now. Kevin Phillips who actually authored Nixon's Southern Strategy that ensured Republican domination for a generation, has turned around to reflect on what he had wrought -- a dangerous, newly ascendant American Theocracy that threatens both the future of the US and the World. His observations are frightening, and he introduces them here as a lead in to his new book. Take a look!

Octavia Butler passes away

2006-02-28T10:43:00.000-05:00

I only just heard that Octavia Butler died of a head wound suffered from a fall last Friday. Although I've only read her Parable series, I could tell Butler was a great author and was eager to get my hand on more titles.

She was one of the few African American women in science fiction, a fact that reflected the unique view she brought to her stories. Along with Ursula K. LeGuin, she brought freshness and new sensibilities to the genre and became one of the most celebrated and beloved of authors.

She will be missed. Check here for one of her last interviews.

Remarkable Article in Newsweek

2005-12-24T14:01:00.000-05:00

Before Evo Morales' stunning election win in Bolivia, the US magazine Newsweek published a remarkably fair account of the indigenous reawakening now taking place throughout the Americas: [Newsweek]

Red Dawn in Bolivia

2005-12-20T20:26:00.000-05:00

Evo Morales won a resounding victory in the Bolivian elections, becoming the first indigenous leader of the Americas in moder history (the last was Benito Juarez of Mexico in the 1800s. This is amazing news, although Morales will have his work cut out for him. As such, he'll need as much help as he can get from all the neighbouring countries which have all likewise turned to the Left. There is of course Chavez whose example he can closely follow to achieve what the Bolivian social movements have been struggling so hard for all these past few years.

Check this person report from Bolivia: [link]

The devastating critique

2005-12-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

Harold Pinter, UK playwright, poet, and winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, delivered a devastating critique of US foreign policy as part of his Nobel lecture.

In addition to printing the full text of the speech, entitled "Art, truth and politics", the Guardian newspaper also commended the eloquence of the speech and Pinter's pitch perfect delivery of moral outrage. The full video is available from the Nobel Prize Web Site.

Big Boohbah is Watching You!

2005-11-19T16:20:00.000-05:00

Although Boohbahs are from a children's show, when cast in a sinister light they can look like the cross between Cthulhu and Big Brother. Beware!

A sign of the apocalypse

2005-10-25T19:30:00.000-04:00

I don't know if other people have noticed, but an age is ending with the Chicago White Sox on the brink of their first World Series Championship since 1917. This follows the Red Sox victory of 2004 which also lifted their curse dating back to 1918 when they traded away Babe Ruth.

These two curses have spanned the entire American century, marking the emergence of the US as a global power at the end of World War I. That baseball has long been considered America's pastime, and thus a potent symbol of the country's cultural and political supremacy, is even more compelling for elevating these events as a historic turning point.

That the twin curses of the Soxes is being lifted now, must portend something earth-shattering, such as the either the final decline of the American Empire, or the beginning of its most expansionist stage.

Coupled with the lose-lose scenario with peak oil on one hand bringing about economic collapse and global warming on the other bringing about ecological catastrophe, we are in for interesting times.

The Kashmiri tragedy

2005-10-19T08:21:00.000-04:00

When a disaster like this comes along, we must repeatedly ask, why are the poor left to their own devices? Why is the state almost purposefully incompetent and inadequate in its response? This article by Aasim Sajjad goes further and revisits the painful history of Kashmir, while squarely framing it within the political economy of the region. The difficult terrain has also complicate matters, and the UN has just recently claimed that this may be the worst logistical nightmare the agency has ever face, ever worse than the Tsunami.

Nobel Prize Winner Blasts Bush and Blair

2005-10-14T12:23:00.000-04:00

Here's an abbreviate version of the speech Pinter delivered upon receiving the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award. (Wilfrid Owen wrote that classic anti-war poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est" as a soldier in WWI): The Independent.

Scathing and entirely accurate, Pinter cuts to the chase, calling a spade a spade in the Iraq war.

Ravanas of this Age

2005-10-08T00:44:00.001-04:00

As Dussehra is around the corner, I thought it fitting to adapt the central mythos of the Ramayana to the contemporary era.

Ravana, the most powerful lord of the heavens and earth and villain of the story, has often been compared with the great evil of the day. As recently as the film The Rising: The Ballad of Mangal Pandey, Ravana was used to describe the East India Company, with his ten greedy heads representing the structure of the corporation.

Of course, Ravana being the most powerful king of the wealthiest nation in the world at the time, has a direct corollary to George Bush in today's Kaliyuga. Both indulged in great acts of hubris born of their arrogance and self-assurance in the righteousness of their cause.

Here are some more specifics:

How is Bush like Ravana?

Like Ravana, Bush is an ostensibly extremely pious person of high birth (although I think he really worships the other guy, not God). Like Ravana, his arrogance led him to assume divine status and grow evil and selfish. Both believe they have been favoured by divinity, and are infallible.

How is Ravana not like Bush?

Ravana was a brilliant and charming leader, whose 10,000 years of exertion gained Shiva's favour. Bush never really worked a hard day in his whole life. However, if you take Ravana with his 10 heads to represent the cabal behind Bush, then it does make sense. Just think of a beast with the heads of Bush, Rove, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft/Gonzalez, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. stuck together. Better yet, don't think about it, as it might be too horrific to behold!

Who is Ram?

Well, if the current net chatter is to be believed, Al Gore may run in 2008 for president. Gore would make a formidable candidate, especially as he has returned to his progressive roots and has emerged as a major statesman. Like Ram, Gore was cheated of his kingdom in 2000. His triumph would be akin to Ram's return from his self-imposed exile to defeat Ravana and ascend the throne. This would mark an incredible come back for Gore, who was gored (no pun intended) for accepting the Florida debacle at face value without putting up more of a fight (he had also greatly disillusioned progressive voters with his own drift to the right). However, no one could have expected that the last 5 years would prove so catastrophic!

Another interpretation can place the fate of this world in the hands of ordinary people -- thus that other superpower of global public opinion. Ravana in praying for invulnerability towards a whole series of deities, demigods, demons, and spirits, forgot to mention humans and animals. This allowed Ram, a human avatar of Vishnu, and Hanuman, lord of the monkeys, to team up and defeat Ravana.

Unfortunately, in researching this topic I came across opposite representations. It seems that many wealthy American Hindus have warmed to George Bush, caring little how many Muslims have to die or how many of their principles they need to betray to gain his favour (although not many, as they have tended to hold similar elite positions in society). Of course, the same people also served the British very well in administering their empire and oppressing their less fortune Hindustani brethren. It's an ugly part of Indian history in that the conquerors have always found willing collaborators amongst Indians. In this case, a common chauvinism with fascist proclivities has infected some powerhungry individuals in the Hindu community, as it has the Christian (religious right), Jewish (right-wing Zionism), and Islamic (retrograde conservativism). Very sad really, but each tradition has also given rise to prophets, mystics, avatars, and reformers who have repeatedly condemned the cozy relationship between the religious leaders and the power elites of each society. Hopefully, they will do so again, and reclaim the banner of peace and compassion for their great faiths.

Quotes on Katrina

2005-09-15T09:14:00.000-04:00

Check this pretty amazing compendium of some awful, some brilliant quotes on Katrina and its aftermath: [link]

Man-made Disaster

2005-08-30T23:28:00.000-04:00

With Hurricane Katrina ripping the Gulf Coast of the US to pieces and the Louisiana National Guard deployed to Iraq, the emergency services in New Orleans have been overwhelmed. However, contributing further to the disaster have been the devestating cuts to emergency preparedness that have been proposed by the Bush administration.

Here's some excerpts from articles illustrating the bad planning:

"Until recently, efforts to squeeze coastal protection money out of Washington have met with resistance. The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. Ultimately a deal was struck to steer $540 million to the state over four years. The total coast of repair work is estimated to be $14 billion."

"In its budget, the Bush administration had also proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

By Bill Walsh, Bruce Alpert and John McQuaid. "Feds' Disaster Planning Shifts Away From Preparedness." Newshouse News Services, August 30, 2005

--

"Hurricane Katrina is now being called one of the worst, if not the worst, disaster in US history. Instead of focusing on this growing tragedy in the southeast, you are at this moment giving a speech in California about World War II and Iraq. Yes, you devoted one minute of that speech to the hurricane, but now it's been 20 minutes and you are still talking about WWII and Iraq."

From America Blog

--

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as ?among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country,? directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City.

Yesterday, disaster struck. And even as one of the strongest storms in recorded history rocked the Gulf Coast, President Bush decided to continue his vacation, visiting the Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort in El Mirage, Ariz., to hawk his Medicare drug benefit plan. (Bush will spend one more night in Crawford tonight before flying back to Washington.)

From As Katrina Struck, Bush Vacationed

--

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans City Business.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: ?It appears that the money has been moved in the president?s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that?s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can?t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.?

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for.

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

--

AND AN ARTICLE AHEAD OF THE STORM:

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.

It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.

I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to.

There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.

New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces severe cuts

America's Downward Intellectual Spiral

2005-08-30T23:01:00.000-04:00

There is no surer sign that America's steep decline in the field of science and human knowledge than the following poll. Coupled with the Republicans' war on science and their shameful McCarthyite baiting of the most prominent climate scientists in the country, the Bush administration's policies seem bent on spreading ignorance amongst the population. Then again, their motto should be "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

Teaching of Creationism Is Endorsed in New Survey
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN, NY Times
Published: August 31, 2005

In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.

The poll found that 42 percent of respondents held strict creationist views, agreeing that "living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."

In contrast, 48 percent said they believed that humans had evolved over time. But of those, 18 percent said that evolution was "guided by a supreme being," and 26 percent said that evolution occurred through natural selection. In all, 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism. [link]

Class Struggles in India

2005-07-29T11:19:00.000-04:00

In the last month, several articles have been published that detail the intensifying class struggle in India, where the rich and poor are locked in an admittedly one-sided struggle (where the rich are pummelling the poor and complaining whenever the poor lifts a finger in protest). That these titanic struggles have been left out of most mainstream press accounts of a "new shining India", is yet another indication of the anti-democratic nature of commercial media and its slavish service to the upper consuming classes.

P. Sainath's on Gurgaon is an enlightening if not depressing account of the struggles in old and new Gurgaon, where redevelopment is creating gated communities on top of the lands of workers. The recent fightback on the part of Honda workers, which was described in the media as a violent explosion, is part of this story of repression, police brutality, and the brazen injustice being visited upon India's working class by the emerging MNC-tied urban elites.

Shivali Tukdeo reports from Mumbai, that in addition to facing devestating floods, has embarked upon a draconian slum clearance campaign that has left over 300,000 homeless over the last year.

The Resplendent Serpent in Bolivia

2005-06-14T15:47:00.000-04:00

Bolivia has been the epicenter of a continent-wide convulsion for much of the last 4 years. The following excellent article tells the story of Bolivia's struggles from its colonization to current revolution of the indigenous population: [This time things might be different]

Both Indymedia and Narconews have also covered the events of early June 2005 that ended in the resignation of the second president in two years under the demand over the full nationalization of the nation's gas and oil reserves.

Christian fascism

2005-05-31T11:46:00.000-04:00

Lately, I have noted with growing alarm the dark shadow of Christian fundamentalism that is gathering strength across the US and the world. This new breed of extremism, called "dominionism", designs to conquer political power in the US, and use its imperial reach to spread a baleful version of "free market" right wing Christianity. Millions of evangelical Christians are being mobilized by these megachurches to serve as handmaidens of the Bush Administration to engage in both spiritual and military warfare against unbelievers. With the unraveling of the hard-won secular fabric, it is almost too fantastic to believe we are slipping back into the dark ages, but it does prove as a useful reminder that civilizations can collapse within a blink of an eye.

Check these articles out: Rolling Stone | Harper's

Provoking Terror in Iraq

2005-05-19T23:14:00.000-04:00

The following tidbit is indeed very interesting, as the massive campaign of bombings throughout Iraq seemed to be designed to provoke an all-out civil war which would only serve the occupation forces. Not even the most hard hearted resistance cells would be behind all of these. Something else is going on, some of which is not new:

One of the larger blasts was in an area called Ma'moun, which is a middle class area located in west Baghdad. It's a relatively calm residential area with shops that provide the basics and a bit more. It happened in the morning, as the shops were opening up for their daily business and it occurred right in front of a butchers shop. Immediately after, we heard that a man living in a house in front of the blast site was hauled off by the Americans because it was said that after the bomb went off, he sniped an Iraqi National Guardsman.

I didn't think much about the story- nothing about it stood out: an explosion and a sniper- hardly an anomaly. The interesting news started circulating a couple of days later. People from the area claim that the man was taken away not because he shot anyone, but because he knew too much about the bomb. Rumor has it that he saw an American patrol passing through the area and pausing at the bomb site minutes before the explosion. Soon after they drove away, the bomb went off and chaos ensued. He ran out of his house screaming to the neighbors and bystanders that the Americans had either planted the bomb or seen the bomb and done nothing about it. He was promptly taken away.

Check the full post here: [Riverbend Blog]

Technological Terror under construction

2005-05-19T12:43:00.000-04:00

Consider this quote from the appropriately named General Lord, head of the US Air Force Space Command:

"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny. Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."

And their new toys:

A new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, calls for a military space plane carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions. General Lord told Congress last month that Global Strike would be "an incredible capability" to destroy command centers or missile bases "anywhere in the world."

Hmm... sounds like the Death Star to me. Here's the full NYTimes article describing the Air Force's plans for the weaponization of space.

It seems like the American Empire won't go quietly like Empires before, but will hold the world hostage to extend its reign. Not good...

"Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this Battlestation." -- Grand Moff Tarkin

This is how liberty dies...

2005-05-16T23:29:00.000-04:00

Here's an AP article that draws the greatest link yet between events depicted in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith and contemporary politics. The theme of the Galactic Republic degenerating into the Empire of the Sith echoes the fate of many democracies over the centuries that have likewise descended along the same path towards the dark side.
Paul Craig Roberts also summarizes all the many ways Bush resembles a Sith Lord.

The Titanic struggles over resources

2005-05-07T11:10:00.000-04:00

In India, the struggle over water provides an entry into discussing the growing divide between the two Indias as well as the two worlds. P. Sainath does a masterful job of describing the implications of treating water as a private good as opposed to a human right in [Counterpunch].

Meanwhile, Jeremy Seabrook echoes this theme by describing the "epic confrontation between those who believe in the capacity of capitalism to bring plenty, peace and progress to all humanity, and those equally convinced that only disengagement from its destructive dynamic offers the hope of planetary survival." More than just a struggle between haves and have-nots, its defines the major ideological faultline that Chavez warns will erupt into hundreds of violent rebellions, if the forces calling for a saner world do not succeed in coallescing into a broad front.
[Guardian]

The Beautiful Bolivarian Dream

2005-05-06T12:59:00.000-04:00

Michael Keefer writing from Havana, had this to say about Hugo Chavez's sense of history:

The Bolivarian dream of Hugo Chavez Frias is a large and inclusive one. "Bolivarianismo," he declared today, is also both "socialismo" and "cristianismo." Chavez Frias' Bolivarian-socialist Christianity echoes the liberation theologians' "preferential option for the poor."

To me it seems Chavez has a far clearer vision of the true Christ than any of the self-professed right-wing Christians who have been acting more like the Pharisees of old in their narrow-mindedness and preference for the rich and powerful. Fortunately there are far more profound ways to understand the universe than the limited cosmovision of jealous absolutist monotheism.

More on this @ [Z-Mag]

IWW 100th Anniversary

2005-04-24T11:07:00.000-04:00

The Industrial Workers of the World, founded a hundred years ago, was one of the most militant and inspiring mass movements in US history. Born of the revolutionary currents sweeping the growing working class at the time, the IWW was nevertheless almost stamped out by the repression that descended in the years of the "Red Scare" following WWI. Ironically, the war represented the complete opposite of the Wobblie (nickname for the IWW) ideal in more than its initials!

Check out this interview with the author of a new book on the Wobblies at [Left Hook]

Sith Pope

2005-04-23T18:59:00.000-04:00

Sith Pope, originally uploaded by ceti.

Not to be an anti-papist, but there is only dark days ahead for the Catholic Church with the Grand Inquisitor in charge. Absolutism leads to the Dark Side...

Dealing in Absolutes

2005-04-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

Here's where the real world and science fiction converge:

ANAKIN: If you're not with me, you're my enemy.

OBI-WAN: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.

(ignites his lightsaber)

From the script for the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Ratz!

2005-04-21T20:49:00.000-04:00

The new pope is a disaster and I am afraid his coming will seal the fate of the church, never mind the prophecies of St. Malachy that predict he is the next to last pope before The End!

I went through his bio with the help of the BBC and this is what I got. Very scary...

Pope Ratz aka, the Enforcer, the Hammer, God's Rottweiler, Cardinal No, the Panzerkardinal, etc. You get the picture. He also incidentally held the same position as that of the Grand Inquisitor. It also says a lot about a person's reputation when they have a lot of nicknames.

BBC: One of his first campaigns was against liberation theology, which had gained ground among priests in Latin America and elsewhere as a means of involving the Church in social activism and human rights issues.

Odd as that was the last chance for the Catholic church to redeem itself!

He has described homosexuality as a "tendency" towards an "intrinsic moral evil". During the US election campaign, he called for pro-choice politicians to be denied Communion.

...including Kerry. It always amazes me that someone who has never even had a sexual relations with anyone (don't say it!) can lecture people with such moral authority on their sexuality.

At the age of 14, he joined the Hitler Youth, as was required of young Germans of the time, but was not an enthusiastic member.

What! He wasn't into the physical exercises? What do they mean by enthusiastic member?

His supporters say his experiences under the Nazi regime convinced him that the Church had to stand up for truth and freedom.

But what does HE say? Sure it's easy for supporters to defend his youth, but what effect did growing up in a very closed xenophobic society like Bavaria in the 30s have?

One incident in particular at Tuebingen, in which student protesters disrupted one of his lectures, seems to have particularly upset him.

If this is a turning point in his life, the guy is just a tad bit high strung, no?

On Monday, Ratzinger, who was the powerful dean of the College of Cardinals, used his homily at the Mass dedicated to electing the next pope to warn the faithful about tendencies that he considered dangers to the faith: sects, ideologies like Marxism, liberalism, atheism, agnosticism and relativism ? the ideology that there are no absolute truths.

Weren't all those things the Nazis hated? What's that about his youth again?

Ok, to set the record straight, he maintains hardline views on contraception, abortion, women in the church, homosexuality, same-sex marriage. He was dismissive of the sex abuse scandals as a media creation. He thinks that other Christians are deficient, and that non-Christians are definitely not worthy. He feels that Europe should look inwards and maintain its cultural traditions in the face of a multicultural society. He sees "moral relativism" as the greatest threat to Christian faith. Thinks Marxism is "tyrannical, brutal and cruel" (never mind the Spanish Inquisition). Was in charge of stamping out liberation theology. Looks forward to the Jews coming to Christ after they have fulfilled their special mission in the world. Agrees with many Muslims in their critique of the moral decadence of the West, but is opposed to Turkey joining the European Union because it belongs to another continent!

Sounds pretty intolerant and fascistic to me, but, I guess NO-body expected this kind of Spanish Inquisition!

Apartheid(s): New and Old

2005-03-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

The issue of the West Bank Wall, lately dubbed the Apartheid Wall got me thinking beyond my usual admittedly low-key approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Below, I've tried to to contextualize the issue in a broader historic and geopolitical perspective to move the discussion beyond the usual polarities.

Bantustans & Oslo

I believe Chomsky introduced the idea of comparing the future Palestinian state to emerge from the Oslo Process (now very passe) to the Bantustans of South Africa. Bantustans were ethnic homelands modeled on the reservation system of North America. Pioneered by the white minority South African government in the 60s and 70s, the Bantustans were established on marginal, unproductive lands to serve as reserve pools of labour, as well as virtual concentration camps for the black population, again not unlike the reservation system.

Interestingly, both sides of the apartheid struggle engaged with the reservation system in their trips to Canada. I remember in high school hearing Archbishop Desmond Tutu decrying the conditions on the reserves, while Pik Botha of the South African government used our system to denounce Canada's hypocrisy in championing sanctions on his regime.

In the case of the Palestinian territories, the West Bank in particular is getting more and more fragmented as Jewish settlements grow and the Palestinian population becomes more and more ghettoized into a myriad pockets. Things indeed have moved far beyond the now dead Oslo Process. The barrier wall that is being constructed would make these cleavages permanent, and thus can rightfully be called an apartheid wall. As planned right now, the wall weaves its away across the West Bank with frequent incursions into Palestinian territory to cover some of the larger settlements. Even more destructive are the fortified highways that also cleave whole Palestinian areas, further subdividing the West Bank's remaining lands into a patchwork of isolated villages. Moreover, for those concerned with environmental justice, the remaining Palestinian lands are impoverished and resource-poor also like the Bantustans. The overdevelopment of settlements will obviously consume more resources such as water in keeping with the American lifestyles of its inhabitants.

Thus a Palestinian state carved up in such a way would hardly be viable (hence the Bush administration stress on this term), would always be dependent and subordinate like the Bantustans on the central government and its security forces. In such a case, self-government is worthless as your own people's thugs would be used to control you -- hence the corruption of the Palestinian Authority which justifies even more intransigence on the part of the hardline Sharon government.

Israel & South Africa

The use of the term Apartheid also resonates deeper than this implementation, owing to the historic ties between Israel and South Africa. In the 70s and 80s, Israel and South Africa cooperated a great deal in defense research and arms transfers, owing to their similar position as white settler societies with large hostile neighbours and their relative isolation in the international community. Both were engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns against their own native populations, as well as covert and not so covert operations against their neighbours -- Israel in Lebanon, South Africa in Namibia, Angola, & Mozambique. This even reached the level of the sharing of nuclear technologies that allowed South Africa to quietly test a nuclear device in the late 1970s. Most in the Third World knew about these ties, and were appropriately repulsed by it. On the other side, the ANC and PLO cooperated as well, with Mandela and Arafat sharing a close friendship. The historic ties can been seen in the sympathy that the Palestinian cause continues to elicit in South Africa today.

Settler Societies

As mentioned, both countries also shared a settler ideology that has historically provided justification for some very harsh policies. The religious dissidents that eventually became the Afrikaaners saw themselves as the chosen people in search of a new homeland where they could establish their New Jerusalem. Many American Puritans also felt this way, and their religious zeal drove them to endure great hardships that today form the foundation of American mythology. Zionism as a 19th century movement also shared these ideas in establishing a permanent homeland for Jews who were then experiencing a massive surge of anti-semitism in Europe and the US -- pogroms in the East were common occurrences in the late 19th and early 20th century, while in Western Europe, anti-semitism festered as illustrated by the Dreyfus Affair in France. In the US, the growing Eugenics movement and the KKK that reached its peak in the 20s, were also targeting all "undesirable genetic stock".

Thus perhaps the darkest irony of modern history is the migration of these persecuted people into lands with preexisting native populations. Making matters worse, European and US imperialists of the day used these movements to set up their own beachheads for the colonization and control of non-European regions. Moreover, settler societies are almost always marked by extremism and violence as they inhabit the frontiers of this colonization. Sadly, settler families as vulnerable and emotive targets provide the moral force for the use of ever greater repression. Thus the fear of suicide bombers coincides quite remarkably with the old American fear of raids by "merciless savages" (incidentally one of the key gripes in the Declaration of Independence) or the South African fear of domination (and retribution) by the black majority.

Moreover, we can still see in media reporting these long lasting connections and sympathies between settler nations. The Canadian and US press are very pro-Israel with the right-wing National Post and the CanWest Global chain of papers leading the way. This contrasts sharply with the ground reality where Palestinians have died in a ratio of 3 to 1 to Israelis over the last five years of the second Intifada. This fits the dominant racialist pattern in press coverage, where sympathy is almost always expressly reserved for white people as opposed to the countless others who count only as statistics. Here, another apartheid is apparent -- the Global Apartheid between rich and poor, the colonizers and the colonized that generally falls along the colour line. For me this has become a point of extreme frustration and sadness, and oddly enough, even more visible in Canada than in the US where a long history of social movements have at least grappled with the country's dark history of genocide, slavery, and discrimination.

Dissidence

Ironically, dissidence to this cycle of violence emerged from similar circles in all three cases. In the US, both the Mexican and Indian wars and slavery were opposed by New Englanders such as Thoreau, Emerson, Melville, although "Manifest Destiny" carried the day in the more frontier areas of the country. In South Africa, many English of Capetown opposed the apartheid regime. Most interestingly was Joe Slovo, a Lithuanian Jew whose family escaped the pogroms of the 1920s and immigrated to South Africa where Joe joined the apartheid struggle and headed the powerful Communist Party until his death in 1995. In Israel and abroad, there is a remarkable peace movement that has withstood the intensity of suicide bombings and pace of events in the Middle East that are creating ever more animosity towards Israel. Their courage and forbearance is quite inspiring (ironically, the prophets of the Old Testament were treated with just such contempt, before being proven right by history).

In addition to all the many ways that Israel, South Africa, and even the US, Canada, Australia, Northern Ireland, etc. share similarities, Palestinian supporters also seek to stress the discursive parallels between their movement and that of the anti-apartheid struggle. This makes sense in several ways -- to restore the Palestinian struggle as a cause célèbre, to stress the role of transnational actors and solidarity, and to hold out hope for a the peaceful resolution as in South Africa where for a long time the situation looked bleak and intractable. As such, it is an important linkage, one that ironically holds out hope by clarifying the situation through a more universal lens. With this as a model, we can engage in the struggle for equity, fairness, justice rather than some indisputable a priori religious claim to the land which can only lead to domination, negation, and extirpation.

A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing

2005-03-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

Bush just nominated Paul Wolfowitz for the head of the World Bank. He will replace James Wolfensohn who served for ten years as the Wolf who attempted to hide in sheep's clothing with all his NGO consultations and green/gender washing policies. At least now though, the Wolf stands fully exposed in all its predatory glory. (With apologies to wolves who are beautiful, noble creatures. What I am talking about is the socio-nature hybrid construct, blah, blah, blah...)

So I guess it's full on with the neo-cons alongside that maniac John Bolton at the UN. Hmmm... For some reason I am beginning to hear the distant sound of hoofbeats of four horses in my head.

Here's a web site that is keeping track of the World Bank President selection process: [worldbankpresident.org]

Sgrena and Cui Bono?

2005-03-07T15:18:00.000-05:00

Former Italian hostage, and journalist for Il Manifesto Giuliana Sgrena writes in her own words the experience of her kidnapping and the killing of agent Nicola Calipari by a US patrol. Things are certainly getting surreal in the Middle East, particularly as foul deeds and dirty tricks are being used to discredit Syria as well the Iraqi insurgency by a campaign of assassinations and bombings not unlike Operation Gladio. Chris Floyd raises this spectre quite convincingly, as the US would benefit greatly from any increased sectarianism.

Apocalypse Now

2005-02-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

Some sobering news from the Independent by way of Z-NET this week, emerging from the meeting in Exeter on climate change. The Kyoto Protocol, already rounded on for its fatal compromises, may offer too little too late to effectively forestall the worst consequences of climate change. The coming decades of the 21st century will be pivotal. Perhaps our only hope is to pass Peak Oil ASAP, although this civilization can do with a fair bit of dismantling for the damage it has done. [link]

When Robots Do the Killing

2005-02-04T10:54:00.000-05:00

Although I've written about this subject before, recent news about the arrival of robot killing machines in Iraq passed by almost entirely unnoticed by most news media. However, the 18 machines (ominously named SWORDS) now being shipped, join their aerial predator drones (already used to kill militants in Yemen in 2002) as part of the unique characteristic of 21st century America's weapons of war.

As AP news reported, these robots will be "the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp." Actually, they are still somewhat primitive as they will be remote-controlled by humans and are based on TALONS that are already in operations defusing roadside bombs and the like in Iraq. Also, as noted by another web site, the SWORDS break Asimov's Laws of Robotics, paving the way for far darker applications of these machines than he ever envisioned.

Indeed, Science Fiction is our best guide here: these SWORDS will be used for urban warfare and counterinsurgency ops (Terminator), as well as for defending installations (Robocop) in an attempt to pacify the population (I, Robot). Indeed, almost every movie on robots has warned against this phenomena, where machines don't have to turn on their human masters to demonstrate the inhumane depths with which the masters of war attempt to sanitize war as an elaborate video game. Indeed, the similarities to the events that presaged the Bulterian Jihad of Dune are much more applicable here.

Here's a commentary that appeared on Commondreams and here's an article on the Soulless Soldiers of the future.

Kids these days...

2005-02-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

This article reminds me of a Bloom County cartoon from the 1980s where rather than anti-war student activists raging on campus, it was pro-Reagan, future yuppies shouting slogans like "Don't trust anyone under $30,000 a year", with a long haired cop commenting, "weirdo kids with their wierdo fascist politics."

[BBC: US teens 'reject' key freedoms]

"I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective."

2005-01-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to an interview with that great Python, Terry Jones, who just released a collection of his commentaries in the form of Terry Jones' War on the War on Terror. Over the past couple of years, Terry Jones has been writing about the so-called "War on Terror" with a fine balance of wit and outrage. His moral vision has guided through the farce of naked propaganda eminating from the White House and 10 Downing Street, and brought some much needed levity to these dark times.

Coupled with Eric Idle's post-election cheer and Michael Palin's fun travelogues, the Pythons are back and better than ever!

Here's Eric's advice:

Cheer Up America.

Ok it looks bad but here are my tips for surviving the depression....

1) Cancel the papers for four years.
2) Ignore all letters from the army.
3) Don't f#*& Republicans.
4) See if you can find an asshole to run next time.
5) Be extra nice to gays. They may be rounded up soon.
6) Remember the Roman Empire fell when the Christians took control.

On the Orwellian Inaugural speech...

2005-01-21T16:48:00.000-05:00

WAR IS PEACE

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

-- George Orwell, 1984

and then from 1984, there is the junior anti-sex league, thoughtpolice (right-wing media), minitrue (propaganda), minipax (war), miniluv (torture), etc.

enough said...

Grant him that much, George Bush is a master of doublethink and doublespeak, or more succinctly put by Hitler, "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." Moreover, his regime fuses elements of Kafka and Orwell. Yet many Americans still love to death their big brother. Reading Orwell, we know why.

Inauguration 2005: Episode III

2005-01-20T10:57:00.000-05:00

It's only fitting that Bush's inauguration, or more accurately his coronation is taking place as Star Wars: Episode III comes out this spring. It seems the timelines of the movie releases and events in the real world are converging, as the Republic falters, the clone wars rage, and the Sith prepare to exact their revenge on the Jedi by declaring a Galactic Empire. Indeed, neo-cons have already put in their case for an American Empire modeled precisely on the Star Wars example!

More interesting still is that Bush is restarting the Star Wars Missile Defense and looking forward to "Full Spectrum Dominance" as well as the restarting of production of mini-nukes. Hmmm... Death Stars, battlestations, massive military buildup to fight "Phantom Menace"...

"fear will keep the local systems in line. fear of this battlestation. It is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it."
-- Grand Moff Tarkin

The Salvador Option: Supreme Evil

2005-01-15T10:39:00.000-05:00

Just this past week, the mainstream news (Newsweek) revealed the probable course of the Iraq war as the US shifts into its genocidal end game of pacifying the Iraqi resistance. The signs were clear from the beginning as Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte -- those murderous characters from the 1980s were tapped to bring their charnel house in Central America to the Middle East to mutilate yet another country. It's as if the spirit of Jack the Ripper lives on in US foreign policy.

The worst thing about the whole affair is that these people would even admit to contemplating the Salvador Option. Long denied by the US, they basically admitted that the Reagan administration was behind the counterinsurgency campaign in Central America that led to some of the most gruesome atrocities ever recorded in modern history. However, such programs had their precedents as Allan Nairn made clear to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. -- beginning with the terror campaign against the Seminoles in Florida, the butchery of the Philippines, the black ops in Vietnam, and the "dirty wars" in Central and South America.

Indeed, the killing of Margaret Hassan, the well-respected and beloved humanitarian worker in Iraq, echoes the killing of American Nuns in 1980 by Salvadoran death squads, so I would not be surprised if covert operations were already underway. It already seems likely that much of the sectarian violence being committed against Shiites is actually being carried out by US-backed death squads.

This article explains some of the gory details of El Salvador's experience.
[link] Always illuminating, Robert Parry places the sudden interest in death squads in the larger context of Bush's dictatorial designs. He also takes a look at Guatemala where the genocide has been extensively detailed owing to the declassification of secret US documents in the 1990s.

And here's another grim story of how barbaric the US occupation has become with the destruction wrought by a military base in the archeological wonder of Babylon. The destruction of at least 4000 years of history parallels the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, yet with perhaps even longer term consequences to archeology.

In tragedy, Imperialism lives on

2005-01-06T10:21:00.000-05:00

I have always admired Jeremy Seabrook. He has an incredibly deftness with language to reveal movingly as well as lucidly the structures of inequality that straddle our world. In this article on the tsunami he at once humanizes the victims and also touches upon the poignancy in which westerners were cared for first as guests of countries that had suffered so much. Even better, this commentary appeared in the Toronto Star, a mainstream paper. [link]

Tsunami aid in context

2005-01-03T19:00:00.000-05:00

The tsunami that devastated so many coastal communities in the Indian Ocean has really dwarfed comparable disasters in the sheer extent of the destruction and enormity of the death toll.

Exactly a year to the day earlier, an earthquake rocked Bam, Iran, leading to thousands of deaths. However, as commentaries have noted, the total aid delivered has fallen far short of the amount promised, a problem that will likely be repeated in this case as governments fall over themselves to beat their chests in demonstrations of grand compassion, while quietly preparing to pull hard on the purse strings.

The mismatch in what is said and done in the past is listed in this Guardian piece. Bush's petulance and mean-spiritedness in this affair has also not escaped media watchers, as the initial US aid offer rose from a measley $15 million to $35 million to $350 million only after the administration was pounded by the press and they realized that the disaster offered a golden public relations opportunity to the US. On the other hand, Earl Ofari Hutchison offers a more optimistic note, but also raises the point that it shouldn't take a disaster of such magnitude for rich countries to do more.

Harsha Walia writing on ZNET has been most critical, taking to task the discourse of compassion that maintains the world as it is, while degrading those it ostensibly cares for. Comparing the outpouring of grief over this natural disaster (albeit greatly exacerbated by poverty and conflict in the regions affected) to other hotspots that fail to register with the media, Walia strongly attacks these injustices and ties it to the bitter ironies that are revealing themselves day by day in the crisis (e.g., Coke donating bottled water after it sucked dry the aquifers of local communities in the region).

Consumer boycott of repugnant corporations

2004-12-23T02:00:00.000-05:00

Just came across this tidbit about which companies donated to who in the US presidential election. Now I know as Mark Morford said that consumer choice represents only baby steps, but since we all buy stuff anyways, we might as well make the right decisions.

You probably already know this but avoid Coors (traditionally the most reliably and rabidly right wing), McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Fruit of the Loom, Guess, Dell Computers, Marriott, Holiday Inn, and even Yahoo and Amazon (Yikes! Barnes and Nobles is a far better option at 98% for Dems even though I've never shopped there). All car companies except Toyota and maybe Honda and all oil companies except Shell also sided heavily with the Republicans.

Google actually donated 100% to the Dems and Apple and Starbucks also did well. Arby's also supported the Dems... Hmm... I'll have to think that one over...

Check a cheeky article about the list here: [link]

And the list of companies and their donation levels at choosetheblue.com.

Warnings of Presidents Past

2004-12-12T14:54:00.000-05:00

These quotes from some of the greatest American presidents reflects the decline of American democracy, and the imminent birth of the military-corporate-fascist state. Remarkably prescient, the trend had already become apparent in the early years of the Republic:

"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world -- no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
-- Woodrow Wilson

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Battlefield Earth

2004-12-11T13:11:00.000-05:00

Bill Moyers, one of the brightest lights of American journalism, is getting ready to retire. His long and distinguished service to imagination, truth, and decency in his works over the years is unfortunately bookended with the lengthening of shadows in this second term of darkness. He parts however with cogent words on the environmental crisis, and the strange and horrifying ascendency of fundamentalist-millennialists who not only pray for armageddon, but are actively working towards hastening it with their baleful influence on the American political system.

The portents of the end times, here illustrated with the destruction of the Earth, are becoming clearer for these people. Ironically, these people who expect to be raptured, will actually pay dearly for their sins against life. [read here]

The Destroyer Of The World

2004-12-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

Came across this powerful article decrying the destruction of Fallujah. I ask, who can stop this man? He is tightening his grip on the US even as I write. All his new cabinet appointees are loyalists and all the bad old ones are back, and will never be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

For Americans, there is this:

Those who do get to know a little are in a constant state of denial. One thing is sure though. Just like in post-war Germany where some even denied the holocaust. "We didn't know what was happening" is bound to become a cliché that will one day be used to ridicule Americans who claim ignorance of the atrocities committed by their administration in their name.

[link]

The Hour of the Beast

2004-12-01T01:19:00.000-05:00

As Bush visits Canada, and Pierre Berton, of our greatest Canadian patriots passes away, my mind turns to Yeats as the "best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity". However, dissent is strong outside the chambers of commerce and high treason where leaders cut opportunistic deals that betray their public pledges. Talk of the weaponization of space is already wafting in the air, with little note paid towards its potential for either global totalitarian control, permanent hegemony, or universal armageddon.

Interestingly, the CBC also aired a segment on how Canadian and US values and beliefs are diverging significantly, and gay marriage is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, 21% of Canadians believe that Men should be the Master of the House, while 52% (and rising!) of Americans believes so. In this day and age, that is frankly astounding.

Joel Kovel, editor of Capitalism, Nature, and Socialism comments quite presciently about the nature of the beast:

The nation which has gone the furthest in realizing the potentials of accumulation also maximizes the role of sexuality in accumulation, and in so doing becomes the nation with the most flourishing counter-sexualities. These seep upward from the ground of everyday life to nourish the Jimmy Swaggarts, Pat Robertsons and, most consequentially, the Karl Roves of this world, where they await a George W Bush, the born-again, ?rough beast? President slouching toward Armageddon. [link]

Tommy!

2004-11-30T22:44:00.000-05:00

Tommy Douglas, leader of the NDP, first socialist premier in North America, and creator of the medicare system won the Greatest Canadian contest on CBC. Actually, there were a lot of good nominations in the top 10. Terry Fox seemed to represent every Canadian, and was the sole martyr on the list. Trudeau and Pearson created modern Canada, and David Suzuki has fought to extend that vision to the world as a whole.

Anyways, here's more about Tommy: [link]

No respect for life

2004-11-26T09:32:00.000-05:00

Recently, I received a lesson in the restricted moral vision of supposedly enlightened people.

I am beginning to think that the root cause of all this turmoil, misery, and suffering in our civilization is the basic lack of respect for life. I have encountered that this has been especially reinforced in academic circles. The idea that non-human life has any independent agency is scoffed at, and animals are not recognized for having an independent existence of their own (which makes no ecological sense, but to social scientists dwelling purely on the human and human perspectives, this is a given). Of course domestic animals have been under our thumb for thousands of years, but they are still alive and still intelligent sentient beings.

The division stems from the basic eurocentric vision that humans are to enjoy dominion over the earth. This anti-life view of laying waste to the planet and turning animals into machines has carried through all the major economic systems including capitalism and socialism (which are basically the flip-side of the same coin), without a recognition of its intrinsic evil. Academics who focus solely on the human are especially blind and malicious in their convictions as they back up their assertions by citing their concerns for human beings, as if the two were mutually exclusive (ironically, by remaining in the academe, they have removed themselves from the struggles of the day and thus do little for humanity!). It's a logical fallacy, but unfortunately one of those favoured debates in which they attempt to burn animal rights activist straw people for their alleged anti-human tendencies. What a load of crap.

Anyways, I found these views astounding. I thought we had moved on since then, and come to a more "humane" view of the world. Alas, I was wrong.

Here are some quotes from Alice Walker:

The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

Star Wars and Dune Allegories

2004-11-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well, a return to science fiction allegories is warranted as Star Wars gets set to complete its six-part epic. It's really too bad the first two prequels were so awful as the themes they explored were profound -- and not only in terms of Anakin's move from the sweet innocent kid on Tatooine to Darth Vader, but also the politics of Republic transforming itself into an Evil Empire to counter a manufactured "Phantom Menace". The way the first movie plays out, where the rebel alliance flies its X-Wings into the Death Star to destroy it from within, and then are blasted out from their rebel bases on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back is reminiscent of 9-11 and the ensuing Afghan war. And of course, Jedi, the religious warriors at the heart of the story sounds very close to Jihad!

Found this perfect spoof pic on the web

I was thinking this before the Boondocks called it!

Another comparison of course is Dune, with its spice controlling consciousness as the sole means of interstellar space travel.

The history of the mysterious religious zealots, the Fremen and the Mahdi figure, Mua'dib are fascinating, as they lead a rebellion/jihad against the Empire. Their tactics are familiar -- first sabotage to bring all spice mining to a halt, and then eventual seizure of the spice supplies of the entire universe. Even though the Padishah Emperor is eerily called Shaddam IV, the role of his coming to Dune to fight the Fremen himself, echoes the current American quagmire in Iraq.

Perhaps the Iraqi resistance should model itself after the Fremen. Even their religion is derivative of Islam, invoking the third Mohammed in the far future and his syncretic Zensunni Wanderers' faith! Too strange!

Here's a story that dwells on this, but goes further to consider the Butlerian Jihad that destroyed the rule of machines and made all subsequent wars up close and personal.

End of Enlightenment?

2004-11-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

Ok, this quote has been noted in other blogs, but it bears repeating here:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

-- Unidentified aide to the President commenting to Ron Suskind in "Without a Doubt." New York Times, October 17, 2004.

So rationality is now being given up for dead. Very postmodern, isn't it? Yet Fascism has always been good at manufacturing its own realities through the advanced application of semiotics, from instilling fear of the other to mindless jingoism and identification with a symbol, leader, or flag. Moreover, the use of identity politics and the sense of victimization has been completely turned on its head since 9/11, positing the American public as an oppressed, violated group, that is now fully justified to express and act on its rage against its perceived enemy. Israel's oppression of Palestinians is justified along similar lines, perverting the experience of the Holocaust to enact a new cycle of hate and violence. Mark Levine comments on this frightening turn.

As witnessed by Karl Rove's genius at manipulating the American public, opponents of America's slide into totalitarianism must recognize that the enemy is much more dangerous and sophisticated than they had thought. We are frankly outmatched by their powerful appeal to the dark side.

Pivotal Time and the News Media

2004-11-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

The Canadian Peace Alliance is organizing rallies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa against the Bush visit on November 30th. I think Bush has to be made unwelcome everywhere he goes. He should be chased all the way back to Crawford if need be. Eminem's song on the topic is right!

In other news, the CRTC has just allowed Fox News to come to Canada. Lest we think Canada is immune to the propaganda offensive of the right-wing media, perhaps we have to think about opposing them beyond just scrawling anti-fascist slogans on National Post newspaper boxes. It is clear that they are THE key instrument of elite rule in the US, Britain, Australia and other parts of the "Anglosphere", and have brainwashed the mass of the working class in each of these nations to consistently vote against their own interests. Hillary Clinton was actually right in pointing to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that has local players on college campuses who have been waging a war against any form of student organizing on University Campuses for at least 20 years. Basically, their policy of corrosive cynicism, faux populism, and returning student fees back to students has demobilized and defunded student activities across North America. Without community organizations, students or anyone for that matter, cannot effectively come to an understanding of their political rights and are made that much more vulnerable to media manipulation. A state of dependency is thus created where the mind has no other alternative but to accept the views projects at them through mainstream corporate news.

The Critical Times project is a vital part of the fight back against this spreading darkness (no melodrama intended, things are really that bleak!). However, what else can we do? I've been experimenting with a web log (http://cethirien.blogspot.com) but the so-called blogger revolution is yet again reaching the same miniscule portion of the population that is paying attention, while the rest of the press and television are being swallowed one by one by the right-wing media empire. Public broadcasting thus takes on added importance, as does satire (Daily Show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes), even though they are vulnerable to the Rupert Murdochs and Sinclair Broadcastings of the world who want to take them apart or pressure them into taking on a "fair and balanced" approach a la Fox.

God, I feel like we are entering the Matrix Universe!

Clash of Civiliz... Er, what?

2004-11-18T01:01:00.000-05:00

Samuel Huntingdon's "Clash of Civilizations" looms large today, particularly as it is being used as an excuse to wage a total global war. However, there are alternative views.

Gilbert Achcar in his "Clash of Barbarisms", explains how in every civilization, there is a sleeping barbarism which is being currently reawakened to wage this war. His thesis thus departs from Huntingdon by trying to explain the current situation in terms of the last 50 years of history. Check out the book review here: [link]

Tariq Ali cites a "Clash of Fundamentalisms" to come to a similar analysis. His strong critique of fundamentalisms on all sides, and his secular, socialist credentials harks back to a different era when political discourse worked at a much higher level. [link]

However, Huntingdon's worst offense is his return to determinism that subsumes all regional and local diversity and differences into a mega-cultural zone called civilization. It is easy to make these calls, but much less so to see the world in all its historical and spatial complexity. Bernard Lewis, another so-called expert on the Middle East goes further, and claims that Arab resentment against the US and the West is a modern form of envy against their ancient civilizational rival, rather than, let's say, about the continual betrayal, looting, killing, and tyranny thrust upon the Arab world for want of Oil.

Anyways, for what it's worth, here's a web page that discusses the piece, and lists concurrences and critiques of Huntingdon's thesis: [link]

And here of course is Said's dead on critique: [link]

We're sorry world!

2004-11-17T23:46:00.000-05:00

There is hope for America yet -- thousands of courageous Americans are sticking their faces out in pictures to show the world they are not with the Evil One. [link]

Soldiers in flip-flops

2004-11-17T23:38:00.000-05:00

This Guardian article says it all. History repeats --no Empire can hold Babylon for long before collapsing in on itself. [link]

In other news, I have redone my 1-minute short film which I will try to convert to a quicktime video for posting.

"We die with dignity and honour"

2004-11-15T21:44:00.000-05:00

Abu Jarrah, the leader of a band of 18 Sunni and Shia Iraqi men, spoke from telephone in the heart of Fallujah to reporters on the outside. Critically wounded and fighting to the end, Jarrah represents the human face of the insurgency. Most in their twenties, tragedy befell the group as they were slaughtered systematically by the heavy shelling and sniper fire from the Americans. Now, he is dying and perhaps will never see his wife and children again, but he dies with dignity having resisted the oppressors and agressors. Very sad, but moving. [link]

Fallujah = Guernica

2004-11-15T13:27:00.000-05:00

Fallujah stood like Helm's Deep against the massed armies of the Orcs and their allies, the wild men of Dunland. However, in real life, there was no last minute charge to save the people nor will the mainstream media do its job and cover the conflict objectively. Rather, they seem to take their marching orders from the US military that shows them what they want to see -- the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the rebels, as opposed to the mass slaughter and use of inhuman weapons by the most powerful force in the world against an enemy that gets around in sneakers and bicycles.

Yet resistance has been sparked all over Iraq. As such, Arundhati Roy's speech on peace and justice is timely and important.

Here's some real news about what happened in Fallujah:

[Dahr Jamail in Iraq]
[BBC: First-hand reports from Fallujah]
[The Guardian: The depravity of the American military]
[The Independent: Utter Devastation]
[Fallujah Pictures]

Here's some commentaries on the media/propaganda coverage:

[Guardian: The screams that will not be heard]
[ZNET: Fallujah coverage]

Galeano: Where the People Voted Against Fear

2004-11-14T20:48:00.000-05:00

In Uruguay and the rest of Latin America, people are beginning to awake from history. As some of the young supporters of the Broad Front exclaimed, "let us dare to win!" May the Anglo world be eclipsed by the South!

Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin America's finest writers, proclaims the victory over fear here: [link]

Dark Tidings

2004-11-03T23:32:00.000-05:00

There is mourning in America. It looks like Bush is back for a second term of darkness. Appropriately, I watched the zombie movie, Dawn of the Dead this afternoon, and was reminded of that prescient Bart Simpson Halloween quip, "The dead have risen, and they're voting Republican!"

Boondocks on the Elections

Talked to friends in the US. Sad, forlorn faces at work, people crying in their cubicles, "How could this happen?", "Who are these crazy people who'd vote for that damn fool?!"

I was numb myself today. The night before I reached home, badly shaken by what was about to transpire. I frankly didn't expect it. I thought there'd be some last minute salvation, some well-earned reprieve and return to sanity. I had thought Bush's reelection was not possible, as we were not ready for armageddon, nor an imperial America. Not yet at least, but it looks like history is in an accelerated time frame. At no time has one party been so dominant in the US political system that was framed with checks and balances to thwart such a dangerous accumulation of power. While Kerry was a flawed candidate, having supported the war, at least he would have restored some balance to the forces at work, keeping in check its worst excesses. Instead now, we have an administration ready to turn the clock back, turn the lights out, and return control to all those slaveholding and Indian-killing red states that voted overwhelmingly for this new Caesar. Its legions of Christian fundamentalist devotees are on the march, ready to crucify the world in their drive towards armageddon.

So I think the old Republic is dead. It's democratic institutions have withered away in the face of authoritarian populism bordering on open fascism and the money power of the corporations and media conglomerates. Fear and loathing won. Lincoln prophesied this 140 years ago when he wrote, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864.

This time, the American people, except for the northern and west coast states gave their full-throated allegiance to a new god-king. The die is cast and all doubt has been cast aside. The days ahead are dark and not even the twinkle of distant stars can inspire much hope.

More links...

A Dark Day in America
Bush Unbound
Wallow in Chaos and Laugh
Morning After
War against the World?

Dawn of the Dead or Second Term of Darkness

2004-11-03T14:20:00.000-05:00

Kerry conceded. Bush won, this time with the popular vote, but did he? There is something extremely fishy about the results coming out of Florida and Ohio.

"Sauron has returned. His orcs have multiplied. His fortress of Barad-Dur is rebuilt in Mordor. He needs only this Ring to cover all the lands in a second darkness. He is seeking it, seeking it, all his thought is bent on it. The Ring yearns above all else to return to the hand of its master. They are one, the Ring and the Dark Lord. He must never find it."
-- Fellowship of the Ring

"There's no good way to spin this disaster. The zombies marched to the polls."
-- Bob Dreyfuss, Investigative Reporter

Not much more can be said from my side. The tiding are grim. The US will slide further into a cesspool of ignorance and malevolence on the part of both the administration and its people.

Here are some important reflections on the vote:

THE MORNING AFTER
Justin Podur, Z-NET

"It looks like voters in a dozen states decided to ban gay marriage, by huge margins, deciding to ruin other people's lives with no benefit to themselves.

That means that it is time to admit something. The greatest divide in the world today is not between the US elite and its people, or the US elite and the people of the world. It is between the US people and the rest of the world. The first time around, George W Bush was not elected. When the United States planted cluster bombs all over Afghanistan, disrupted the aid effort there, killed thousands of people, and occupied the country, it could be interpreted as the actions of a rogue group who had stolen the elections and used terrorism as a pretext to wage war. When the United States invaded Iraq, killing 100,000 at the latest count, it could be argued that no one had really asked the American people about it and that the American people had been lied to. When the United States kidnapped Haiti?s president and installed a paramilitary dictatorship, it could be argued that these were the actions of an unelected group with contempt for democracy.

With this election, all of those actions have been retroactively justified by the majority of the American people.

The first time around the Bush people acted without a mandate. Today, the only constituency that could have stopped them has given them a mandate to go beyond what they have done." [link]

--

IN THE US, BLACKS AND WHITES LIVE IN "DIFFERENT MORAL UNIVERSE"
[link]

--

AN ELECTION SPOILED ROTTEN
TomPaine.com, Monday Nov 1, 2004

"It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by a almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked, overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election." [link]

H2O on CBC

2004-11-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

Whoah, I just finished watching the CBC mini-series H20. Pretty stark political thriller with the whole shabang -- continental integration, selling of water to the US, corporate malfeasance, IMF & World Bank maneuvering, assassination of the Prime Minister, martial law in Canada, riots in the streets, and the US takeover of Canada, all in 4 hours! It almost runs as a story I wrote in grade 8 during the original FTA campaign.

Hopefully it will be repeated. Should be a great help to the Council of Canadians who work on the issues of deep integration and water at the heart of the movie.

Here's a review and another.

Two Articles on Venezuela

2004-08-30T11:02:00.000-04:00

Frontline of India reports on Chavez's success at the polls in August. Citing the outcome of the referendum as completing a hat-trick in Chavez's defeat of the opposition, Frontline also carries a commentary that roots for Chavez as one of the premiere statesmen of the Third World that we have today. Incidentally, Chavez was supposed to be the guest of honour at the Indian Republic Day Celebrations in 2003, but was held back due to the serious crisis engendered by the oil lock-out.

As the commentary makes clear, little will change in the US's position on Venezuela whether Bush or Kerry is elected. Both intend to continue maintaining the US's hegemony over Latin America, which has found it
most serious contemporary challenge in a resurgent Bolivarian Venezuela. That's why Chavez is so important as he restores dignity to Latin America's black and indigenous masses and inspires them for the struggle ahead against the 500-year-old tyranny of imperialism and colonialism.

"Traitor's Flinch and Coward's Sneer"

2004-08-28T15:32:00.000-04:00

For some time, I have monitored the rants of several well known, ostensibly leftist commentators who have taken a hard right turn in recent years. I have been grappling for an apt metaphor for the turnaround of such individuals like Christopher Hitchens, Todd Gitlin, and Marc Cooper who have all written for the Nation and other weeklies, and it struck me that their viciousness towards their own friends is similar to the crowds that cried for Barabbas instead of Jesus in front of Pointius Pilate. While Hitchens has tried to liken his left bashing to the works of George Orwell, he is closer to the likes of David Horowitz, whose Trotskyist sectarianism easily led to extreme right wing views in the service of Empire. (Then again, what can you expect from a guy who gives a book length treatment to bashing Mother Teresa, titling the book Missionary Position of all things?)

It goes without saying that there must be a special place in hell reserved for those who use their rhetorical and polemical skills to attack their colleagues as opposed to speak truth to power. Beyond treason, there betrayal is cowardly and self-serving, if not downright anti-human and often quite racist in their dismissal and denigration of any popular movement. However, their corrosive cynicism and bitter diatribes are dangerous in that they lend much valued credibility to the right, even though they are fundamentally based on personal grudges and vendettas. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but they vindictively aim for the jugular to close off any discussion and hope about alternative visions of the future, locking and framing the debate to suit their own sense of self-righteousness and pompous self-importance. Moreover, they can get away with irresponsible punditry as they belong to no movement but their own chattering class of elitists and intellectual snobs.

Ah, but we have the hard luck to be afflicted by their likes for some time to come. It seems that 20 pieces of silver still go very far these days. Here's an article by Herman that describes this depressing phenomenon.

Bolivar's Return

2004-08-27T15:27:00.000-04:00

It's been a long long time since I last updated this blog. I have been rather occupied with travels and finishing thesis work over the summer. However, I wanted to share the following -- recently, I've kept close watch on events in Venezuela (particularly events around the historic referendum), and in my meanderings came across the following fantastic film:

Bolivarian Venezuela: the people and their struggle in the Fourth World War

This is a new 76 minute documentary which analyses Venezuela?s Bolivarian Revolution as part of the world movement against capitalist globalization. The film follows the evolution of the popular movement from the "El Caracazo" revolt in Feb 1989 until the massive mobilisations that restored their elected government 48 hours after a US-supported military coup in April 2002. It's an incredibly powerful and moving film with rich historical footage and constant commentary by people on the street about their feelings and support for what they see as their revolution and the fruits of their hard won shift from so-called representative democracy into participatory democracy.

It's available for download in 7 sections in mp4 format at indymedia (UK).

If you have high speed DSL, it shouldn't take long at all. I believe the Revolution Will Not Be Televised is also available for download from http:/www.vheadline.com, but I'm not sure.

Also check out the following articles:

The Importance of Hugo Chávez

Venezuela and the International Left

Needless to say, the events unfolding in Venezuela are incredible. People are on the move once more, and Latin America has once again a champion for continental revolution. Unfortunately, Kerry's policies on Latin America differ little from Bush, thus the struggle against Yanqui Imperialism looks set to continue whatever happens this November.

It thus seems certain that hope and change won't come from the North, but trickle up from the South where the real struggles are shaping tomorrow. Already plans are being laid to hold a global day of solidarity with the Bolivarian Process and the emerging Pachamerican (Indigenous Americas) Revolution on October 12th, reclaiming Columbus Day for Indigenous Resistance across the Americas.

Hasta la Victoria Siempre!
Viva Chavez!

Racism at the heart of Imperialism

2004-05-05T10:47:00.000-04:00

I haven't commented so far on the photos of torture that are coming out of Iraq. No comment is necessary as the horror is being shown for all to see, with of course much less being revealed besides the pictures from the whistleblowers. However this Guardian article by Ahdaf Soueif puts it into the proper racist context. Surprising, the Washington Post also follows through with an article about the brutalizing effects of colonial wars and how the new images will define America in much of the world for decades now.

Untermenschen

2004-04-25T12:06:00.000-04:00

David Edwards (Crushing Fallujah, 2) does a masterful job analysing how the western corporate media treats western/white victims of violence and everyone else. This differential treatment, where non-white people are still regarded as subhuman (Nazi ideology "untermenschen"), unworthy of even momentary pity and compassion (except when it suits the powers that be politically), has been deeply rooted in our world civilization for at least 500 years. I am increasingly coming to think it is the frame that most effectively explains the world as it is today.

There never was a post-colonialism. The colourline -- global apartheid -- is here and growing, regardless of how multicultural western societies get.

Question of Resistance

2004-04-16T14:21:00.000-04:00

Stan Goff's commentary The Bridge, is a powerful tonic to the delusions of pacifism that demand of victims their abject surrender to violence to maintain their moral high ground. Goff unveils this hypocrisy from the interesting standpoint of a former soldier, and how current outreach efforts of anti-war activists are doomed to fail if they don't consider the immediacy and reality of the soldier's experience.

Black Commentator also outlines the colour line at the root of how the US military treats non-white populations. In fact, it is the colour line that seems to govern almost all US imperialism's dealings with the world, from Haiti to Venezuela to the refusal to count the Iraqi dead in the current conflict.

Iraq: Back to the Future

2004-04-16T14:07:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about the Iraq conflict in its historical context. The last time an imperialist power tried to occupy Iraq/Mesopotamia/Babylon, was only 84 years ago when the entire Arab World was divided up between the French and English after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The parallel between the British occupation of Iraq in 1920 and the United States' occupation of the country now is startling and has been mentioned before in these pages, but here's another article from Frontline that details the story including the eerily resonant quote from Winston Churchill about Shia and Sunni uniting to fight the occupier.

It's interesting however that Bush is getting so biblical. Of course according to the dream prophecies of Daniel a series of empires would rule over Babylon, eventually culminating with the last iteration of the Roman Empire (Pax Americana?!) at the end of days... Quite a sobering thought...

Haiti and Venezuela

2004-03-06T17:56:00.000-05:00

Many apologies for taking so many months off from updating this blog. Various currents in life have developed their own momentum in the last few months, but perhaps restarting the blog will get me back on track.

However, the more things change, the more they remain the same. This past week we have seen a coup in Haiti, as Jean-Bertrand Aristide was once again driven from the country by US-backed militias and gangs. Haiti seems cursed even worse than other Caribbean and Latin American countries to suffer constantly under the boot heel of the US and its own local murderous elites. Even sadder is that this year, Haiti is marking the 200th anniversary of its successful revolt against French rule and the establishment of the first liberated slave republic.

Of course, the mainstream corporate media has reported only on the despair, chaos, and poverty of Haiti, without any of the context (their racism goes quite far I suppose as does their complicity in the crimes of the administration). Fortunately, these articles [1, 2] from Jeff Sachs have at least shed light on the horrific economic campaign against Aristide.

The US is attempting the same in Venezuela to get rid of another disliked leader, Hugo Chavez [Venezuela Next?, Report from Caracas]. Is would be a deeply depressing story, if it were not for the incredible resistance being mounted against the designs of the super-predator.

Can the Empire Strike Out?

2003-10-20T15:47:00.000-04:00

Echoing some of my thinking on the fate of the biosphere, this piece by Bioneers founder Kenny Ausubel, claims that today's global civilization stands a chance of driving the final nail in the coffin of planet Earth. While civilizations collapsed over the last several millennia, their effects were always localized until now.

However, Ausubel tries to sound an optimistic note, by also citing the emergence of the new global superpower of popular movements (which itself is an echo of a New York Times piece following up on the February 15 global march against the war, the largest coordinated protest in world history).

Edward Said died last night

2003-09-25T16:11:00.000-04:00

Edward Said died last night. He was one of humanity's best and brightest, a towering intellect and ceaseless activist on behalf of Palestinians and all other oppressed peoples seeking a voice and champion. His presence in this world, especially at this time will be sorely missed. Here's a tribute from his friend Alex Cockburn.

I fear now we shall see a quickening of time as other great minds and humanitarians such as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn approach the twilight of their years.

Martyrdom at the WTO

2003-09-12T14:53:00.000-04:00

On September 10, Lee Kyang Hae made the ultimate sacrifice in his personal protest against the WTO. Fifty-eight years old, Lee has seen what the neoliberal economic order has done to farmers worldwide, and most painfully at home, where rural life has been destroyed by free trade agricultural policies. His poignant and symbolic act, coupled with his statements and actions against the WTO in the past, highlight the desparate plight of billions worldwide in this era of globalization. May he rest in peace and may his death not be in vain.

Here's an article about his life and death. Here's another one recounting the moments before and after Lee's taking of his own life.

Mars and misfortune

2003-08-22T01:18:00.000-04:00

I have met with some unexpected tragedies this past week as car accidents either injured or claimed the lives of beloved relatives. My father told me the news on both counts. He said how grateful we should be for each day, as life is so precious, but it only reminded me more of our mortality.

I think of all that's happened this summer, all the contradictions of a resurrected community garden and my niece's first months on this Earth, contrasted by the ruin and rape of the cradle of civilization, the forests of British Columbia going up in flames, thousands expiring of heat in France, news of coral reefs, ancient and vast, disappearing within our generation, and our personal tragedies and near death experiences of friends and family. Even David Kelly's suicide, the esteemed UK weapons expert, has been shocking, personalizing the high drama of this spring with his final walk in the woods.

It all seems too much, and the fact that Mars, the red planet and god of war, will be at its closest in 60,000 years strikes me as not too surprising. I can already see how bright it is, a steady red dot shining in the firmament, made especially clear by the recent blackout. To think it hasn't been closer to Earth in all the history of homo sapiens sapiens is quite remarkable.

Here's the details:

At 5:51 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, 2003, Mars will be within 34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) of Earth. This will be the closest that Mars has come to our planet in nearly 60,000 years.

But no matter how terrible life gets, I see that life goes on. Recently, scientists discovered microbes that can survive temperatures of up to 121 degrees at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This has led to renewed speculation that life could have flourished elsewhere such as on Mars. The incredible growth in our garden, with plants sprawling in all directions groping for sun and rain further reminds me of life's resilience and yearning. To see all life striving to live and unfold its biological potential dispells much of the gloom and does much to create a feeling of connection to all living things -- past, present, and future. I draw some solace from this even as our world dies a little more each day, and our loved ones slip from our grasp one by one until our own turn comes to rejoin the cosmos.

Looking at things this way helps, but our human memories quite rightfully remain. And then there are gems like this obit of an amazing woman.

BBC covers Venezuela's urban gardens

2003-08-21T23:43:00.000-04:00

In this report, only the BBC can debunk the hysterical accusations of the Venezuelan oligarchy with such understatement. Although a bit decontextualized, it does cover an important initiative by the Chavez government to increase self-reliance on the part of the poor, and how urban gardening is an integral part of that. Cool!

Here's also a link to an older Reuters article available at Environmental News Network.

Sacha Trudeau in Iraq

2003-08-18T18:16:00.000-04:00

Quite unlike that other son of a former prime minister Ben Mulroney, Sacha Trudeau demonstrates a worldliness and humanism through film as he prepares to hop from Iraq to Liberia. Heck, maybe he'd make a great prime minister, as the following article is quite moving: A witness to war.

With Eyes Wide Shut

2003-08-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

With Europe broiling with record setting temperatures, and August in Toronto resembling Southeast Asian monsoon weather, the signs of dramatic climate change are spreading. However, humanity seems unable to respond rationally as Monbiot explains in his recent commentary in the Guardian.

The rising of Venezuela

2003-08-11T01:59:00.000-04:00

Finally, an article that reflects the amazing things going on in the poor barrios of Venezuela. It seems actually possible that this civic awakening will reach the point of no return. If so, things will never be the same in Venezuela, and the Bolivarian Revolution can only grow stronger and spread throughout the lands of Bolivar and beyond!

Read here: Venezuela's slum army takes over

Environment History Repeats?

2003-08-09T01:19:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman, the liberal columnist for the New York Times makes a timely visit to the environmental history of Sumerian civilization, present day Iraq, to raise concerns over Bush's environmental policies. That denial and deception are at the core of these abusive policies are self-evident, however past history tells us the consequences could be deadly.

Read the article here: Paul Krugman: Salt of the Earth.

The War on Truth

2003-07-31T23:24:00.000-04:00

In this article, Pilger again offers a much needed antidote to the Goebbels-speak coming out of Washington and London. It's incredible the enormity of the lies that are being perpetuated by both the corporate and state medias, as Pilger makes clear. It really drives home the depravity of imperialism that requires the dehumanization of human beings for its genocidal goals.

Bolivarian Circles Revealed

2003-07-31T23:13:00.000-04:00

Z-NET has finally published an interview with the director of the Bolivarian Circles in Venezuela, Rodrigo Chavez, that reveals their immense potential for revitalizing participatory democracy. Viva Chavez!

With a half life of 4.5 billion years

2003-07-25T02:26:00.000-04:00

A former US army officer in charge of testing and cleaning deplete uranium munitions sites has been raising the alarm bells about the weapon's eternal legacy. Major Douglas Rokke has been speaking to peace groups across the US about the extent of the contamination, the health effects, and the military cover-up that is keeping the issue from being more broadly discussed.

Indeed, Iraqis have long noted how contaminated regions where the weapons were used have reported horrific birth defects and elevated rate of cancer. Gulf War veterans have suffered mysterious symptoms too, in the form of the Gulf War syndrome that has afflicted over 200,000 ex-soldiers and killed 10,000 more. The devestation of Agent Orange comes to mind, as the US deploys yet another WMD with lasting consequences, this time for the life of the Earth itself.

GM Foods: Towards An Apocalypse

2003-07-23T02:55:00.000-04:00

Besides the ecological and health effects, the issue of GM foods is basically about the corporate domination of every aspect of life. Replacing local self-reliance and food security for high tech dependency, the US has been engineering the global food market for years, and looks set to massively expand its grasp through such measures as the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. See this article by Devinder Sharma of the Delhi-based Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security for another ominous read.

Quote:

"After taking control over one-third of the world's crude oil supplies and that too after a futile search for 'weapons of mass destruction', American President George Bush appears ready to take over the world's food market and that too by emotionally misleading the world in the name of removing hunger."

Crisis of the Globalist Project

2003-07-23T02:36:00.000-04:00

Walden Bello lays it all out in yet another excellent article about the state of things in today's world. Check it out at Z-Net.

Here's a quote:

The Bush people are not interested in creating a new Pax Romana. What they want is a Pax Americana where most of the subordinate populations like the Arabs are kept in check by a healthy respect for lethal American power, while the loyalty of other groups such as the Philippine government is purchased with the promise of cash. With no moral vision to bind the global majority to the imperial center, this mode of imperial management can only inspire one thing: resistance.

The Alamo in Mosul

2003-07-23T01:20:00.000-04:00

If American forces really did kill Saddam's sons, it was not without a so-called fight. It took over 200 American troops, several helicopter gunships, more than 20 missiles, and over six hours to overcome four men who only had small arms to defend themselves. That's right, four against the US military machine!

Supposedly the two brothers, Uday and Qusay (who incidentally don't get along) were among the four, along with Qusai's teenage son and a bodyguard (Mustafa, 14-years-old, is the one who fought to the death after the adults were killed by a barrage of missiles and gunfire). At the end of it, the villa was completely demolished by the siege. One wonders what secrets the brothers might have had for the Americans to kill rather than capture and try them.

Despite going down honourably in a hail of bullets and missiles, the brothers won't be mourned. They were vicious and depraved in life, yet now they won't ever be tried for their crimes.

45 Minutes

2003-07-20T20:23:00.000-04:00

Came across this quote by Arthur "bomber" Harris, the (in)famous British air force commander boasting about teaching the Iraqis a lesson with his biplanes in 1920: "within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or wounded." ("Britain Tried First. Iraq Was No Picnic Then.", New York Times, July 20, 2003)

Odd then that the same figure would crop up again in Britain's dodgy dossier from September which claimed that Iraq's WMDs can be deployed in "45 minutes." History is full of interesting ironies.

"Judgement Day is inevitable"

2003-07-18T13:37:00.000-04:00

The words of the latest reprogrammed Terminator to come back to save John Connor echo how the US military is plunging headlong into the frightening reality outlined by the Terminator movies. Although the idea of self-aware war machines turning on their human creators was revived by the Matrix, the Terminator movies, especially the latest installment, more clearly drew the link between humanity's (or in this day and age, the US) hubris in creating more efficient killing machines to do their dirty work.

A key scene in Terminator 3 is the presence of the earliest prototypes of hunter-killer drones and Terminators in the same US military research facility as skynet. That Terminators were created by the US military is the most realistic and alarming assessment of current trends in advanced weapons research, the militarization of space, and the automation of war.

Check these headlines out to get a sense of foreboding about what is being unleashed:

--

Allen Moshfegh, a researcher at the U.S. Office of Naval Research, is building a network that would support swarms of unmanned, unattended and untethered drones on the ground, in the air and underwater. These machines would be capable of independently handling events in a hostile combat zone, such as surveillance, strike and even capture and detention. Aiming to create an adaptive, dynamic, self-healing network of drones, Moshfegh intends to rework the whole idea of military structure.

-- The Drone Armies Are Coming, Wired News, August 30, 2002

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is accepting research proposals to create a self-aware computer system that would reason in a variety of ways, learn from experience and adapt to surprises. It would be aware of its behavior and explain itself. It would be able to anticipate different scenarios and predict and plan for novel futures.

-- Good Morning Dave..., Computerworld, November 11, 2002

Like the flying killer robots of the "Terminator" movies, the California-built unmanned Predator aircraft is a step closer to the automated battlefields long envisioned by science-fiction writers.

-- Predator drones are the future of warfare, SF Gate, November 6, 2002

"Minuteman will enable the Navy to bring fully networked force to the battlefield," Gerla said. "This will be the 'glue' that holds together supporting technologies such as mission planning, path planning, reasoning, decision making and distributed real-time computing and control."

-- SkyNet Will Guide Unmanned Vehicles into Battle, Space Daily, April 24, 2002

But the Pentagon, energized by successes in Afghanistan, is moving ever closer to draining the human drama from the battlefield and replacing it with a ballet of machines. Rapid advances in technology have brought an array of sensors, vehicles and weapons that can be operated by remote control or are totally autonomous. Within a decade, those machines will be able to perform many of the most dangerous, strenuous or boring tasks now assigned to people, military planners say, paving the way for a fundamental change in warfare.

-- Machines Are Filling In for Troops, NY Times, April 16, 2002

The Shadow of Extinction

2003-07-02T01:14:00.000-04:00

George Monbiot reminds us that, like during the great Permian extinction, it only takes a few degrees change in the earth's surface temperature to lead to a massive catastrophe.

June 5th - World Environment Day

2003-06-10T01:54:00.000-04:00

Did anyone notice?

As a UN mandated event, it has become a non-event, even though as the following articles point out, we are facing looming disasters, and passing through grave catastrophes. Bill McKibben gets right down to it, as he catalogues how much of the living Oceans we have destroyed: "In the past 50 years, the populations of every single species of large wild fish have fallen by 90 percent or more." Meanwhile, the UN attempts to outline efforts to deal with the global water crisis, threatening to emerge as the biggest single challenge confronting the survival of humanity in the 21st century.

On SARS, Mad Cow Disease, and Animal Welfare

2003-06-10T01:39:00.000-04:00

Sent this to the National on CBC, and it was read on Monday night, May 26:

"Our methods of raising livestock for meat production have become so intensive, that we are feeding animals the remains of other animals. This does not come without consequences hence Mad Cow Disease. However, the threat of this dread degenerative brain disease should prompt us to suggest genuine solutions to this recurring crisis -- making the welfare of livestock paramount and returning to less intensive, more "humane" methods of ranching and animal husbandry that treat animals as animals as opposed to unfeeling machines."

Part of a larger commentary I wrote on Friday May 23:

"There are fields, endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For the longest time I wouldn't believe it, and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth."
-- Morpheus, The Matrix

Replace human beings with cattle, pigs, chickens, and even fish, and the Matrix comes to life, so to speak. Our factory farming methods differ little from the commodification of life represented by the Matrix's field of human beings feeding and powering the machine civilization.

And our methods of raising livestock for meat production have become so intensive, that we are feeding animals the remains of other animals. This mass cannibalization -- the "pure horrifying precision" of recycling "nutrients" -- does not come without consequences, hence Mad Cow Disease.

However, it was only the threat of this dread degenerative brain disease passing to humans that prompted mass hysteria and panic in the UK, leading to the mass slaughter and burning of entire herds. In the end, the cattle were deemed dispensable, and extermination deemed necessary to guarantee the safety of the British beef industry. Who knows how many cows will be killed ahead of their predestined slaughter date in Alberta to save the cattle Canadian beef industry? Sadly, I have heard nothing in print or the news media to suggest genuine solutions to this recurring crisis -- making the welfare of livestock paramount and returning to less intensive, more "humane" methods of ranching and animal husbandry that treat animals as animals as opposed to unfeeling machines.

SARS too, like other emergent infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola, and West Nile Virus, has its origin in the process of zoonosis. A recent report on CBC's the National traced SARS to the overcrowded cages of exotic species in Guangdong province. Civet cats in particular, considered a delicacy in southern China, were found to carry the SARS coronavirus. Caged in overwhelmingly cramped and filthy conditions, these poor animals were rendered inadvertently into incubators for new infectious agents.

However it seems that health authorities such as those in Singapore, rather than targeting the contraband market for endangered species and the horrible conditions in which these animals are kept, are targeting the animals for extermination. This retrograde step proves that cruelty to animals and the sad lack of any consideration for their right to life knows no bounds and seems sadly common to a majority of humanity.

Symptomatic of a greater human malady, these diseases and consequent health care crises can only be seen as side-effect of our depravity as a species. As Rabindranath Tagore wrote, " We manage to swallow flesh, only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no arguments or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, it protests against cruelty, is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us--in fact, any one who does not join in is dubbed a crank."

Eventually though, our actions have unintended consequences, and nature has a way of surprising our most smug self-satisfaction as the controllers of life on Earth.

Howard Fast, 1914-2003

2003-06-08T23:21:00.000-04:00

After reading Howard Fast's extraordinary book, The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (which I incidentally found at the Good Will drop off on campus) I looked him up on the net, only to realize he had just recently passed away in March. He had a prolific career, always championing the common people in their struggle for justice and freedom. He wrote the book, Spartacus, which would soon after be rewritten as a screenplay for the movie of the same name.

Here's a web site that hosts salient information about the author and his works. The web site even includes a Bulletin Board and links to where his books can be found.

Here's also a link to Pete Seeger's rendition of Sacco's letter to his son which stands as a testament to the unassailable dignity of human life.

Matrix World

2003-06-08T16:09:00.000-04:00

Recently, I've been reviewing articles with a particularly progressive stance on the new Matrix Reloaded movie. In addition to the brief apparition of G.W. Bush in the Matrix Architect's chamber while he was speaking about the various grotesqueries of human nature, the Matrix's revolutionary leanings may be profoundingly inspirational. The Not in Our Name campaign has distributed leaflets in conjunction with screenings of the movie, encouraging people to take the red pill, wake up, and join the resistance.

Here are links to some of the articles I've found:

Ideology Reloaded
By Slavoj Zizek, In These Times
June 6, 2003

Matrix Reloaded: Take the Red Pill
By Nick Fredman, Green Left Weekly
May 28, 2003

Reloading to fight the Bush Matrix
By Harvey Wasserman, Columbus Free Press
May 26, 2003

TECHSPLOITATION: Sex in the Matrix
By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
June 4, 2003

America's Matrix
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
June 2, 2003

The intellectual and 'The Matrix'
By Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times
May 20, 2003

The Matrix's Neo is the Hero of My Generation
By Samuel Rodriguez, Pacific News Service
May 20, 2003

The Dream of "The Matrix" is Over
By Russell Morse, Pacific News Service
May 19, 2003

Hacking the 'Matrix' Master Code: Reloaded Questions
By Jane Dark, Village Voice
May 14 - 20, 2003

More Like 'The Matrix' Every Day
By Farai Chideya, AlterNet
April 24, 2003

The New Imperialism

2003-05-20T19:16:00.000-04:00

Arundhati Roy is becoming one of the clearest spokespeople for the global resistance movement against Imperialism and Hegemony. Here she knocks down all the bunk about Democracy coming on the wings of bombers: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free)

2003-05-20T19:14:00.000-04:00

Oh, the humanity! Things just keep getting more surreal in Iraq, as US special Psy Op forces use Sesame Street, Barney, and Metallica to break the will of POWs. Amnesty International is seriously concerned about this auditory torture that has gone on for days: BBC NEWS | Middle East | Sesame Street breaks Iraqi POWs

Viva Chavez!

2003-05-20T02:10:00.000-04:00

Egad, it's been more than a month since I updated this blog. Sorry about that. Things kind of got out of had at the end of the semester. The war in Iraq even ended, leaving the horrible wreckage of a 10,000 year-old civilization humiliated and torn to bits.

One inspirational light at the end of the tunnel was the broadcast on CBC Newsworld of Chavez: Inside the Coup, perhaps one of the most stunning documentary pieces ever made. The Irish filmmakers were on hand making a film about the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez, when BAMM, the coup happened. In an amazing turn around, unlike so many depressing and maddening events of Humanity's sorrowful history, the coup was successfully overturned by the people of Venezuela. Simply amazing as the footage bears it out. I was able to have friends tape it and I have thus far made multiple copies.

Go here for news from Red Pepper on the one year celebration of the "civic-military victory" over the coup plotters who wanted to return Venezuela to the bad old days of oligarchic control and mass poverty and disempowerment. Narco News has also been featuring a series of articles on the Bolivarian process and Hugo Chavez.

The US Strikes Back

2003-04-08T21:18:00.000-04:00

Egad, this article entitled Bush's Alderaan hits the nail on the head. The title is ingeniously named to connote that poor unfortunate planet in the original Star Wars movie to fall prey to the Empire's Death Star.

While the present transition from a Republic to an Empire using the foil of a manufactured enemy echoes the more recent Star Wars movies, another more ominous echo can be found in Bush's religious fervour. Just like Darth Sidious was a dabbler in the ways of the Force, there seems to be two sides of Christianity and religiosity making its presence felt in the world today -- that of the peacemakers and fundamentalists.