Archive - Sep 2008

Dear Friends, Family, and Comrades:
We are the RNC 8: individuals targeted because of our political beliefs and work organizing for protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention, in what appears to be the first use of Minnesota’s version of the US Patriot Act. The 8 of us are currently charged with Conspiracy to Commit Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism, a 2nd degree felony that carries the possibility of several years in prison. We are writing to let you know about our situation, to ask for support, and to offer words of hope.

A little background: the RNC Welcoming Committee was a group formed in late 2006 upon hearing that the 2008 Republican National Convention would be descending on Minneapolis-St. Paul where we live, work, and build community. The Welcoming Committee’s purpose was to serve as an anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing body, creating an informational and logistical framework for radical resistance to the RNC. We spent more than a year and a half doing outreach, facilitating meetings throughout the country, and networking folks of all political persuasions who shared a common interest in voicing dissent in the streets of St. Paul while the GOP’s machine chugged away inside the convention.
In mid-August the Welcoming Committee opened a “Convergence Center,”a space for protesters to gather, eat, share resources, and build networks of solidarity. On Friday, August 29th, 2008, as folks were finishing dinner and sitting down to a movie the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department stormed in, guns drawn, ordering everyone to the ground. This evening raid resulted in seized property (mostly literature), and after being cuffed, searched, and IDed, the 60+individual inside were released.

In an election where debate over health care has been next to non-existent, an article in Embassy magazine slipped through the cracks.

In July, a group of 200 American investors, led by an Arizonan businessman, launched a $155 million lawsuit under the North American Free Trade Agreement against the Canadian government. They say the lawsuit is recourse for barriers they faced in trying to establish private health clinics in Canada.

The article points out that he medicare system is probably safe for now, since it is still primarily publicly run. But while this case may be dismissed, there will certainly be more to come. And if in the meantime more private health services are introduced in Canada, the next NAFTA challenge will be that much harder to fight.

(via Rabble's Election Blog)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, September 29, 2008

Barriere Lake slows down traffic on Highway 117: continues to pressure Minister Lawrence Cannon and his Conservative Government to respect Barriere Lake's agreements and leadership customs

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory Territoire Algonquin /- On the National Day of Political Action, at 1:30 pm, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake will slow down traffic on highway 117 to distribute flyers and raise awareness about the Conservative government's violations of their rights.

"The federal government must accept reasonable demands we've spent years trying to reach them about – that the government honour agreements they've signed with us and stop undemocratically propping up an illegitimate Chief and Council in our community," says Norman Matchewan, a youth spokesperson for Barriere Lake.

They want the Government of Canada to uphold an internationally lauded sustainable development agreement Barriere Lake signed with Quebec and the Conservative federal government in 1991. The Government of Canada has been in breach of the agreement since 2001.
To resolve the situation, Barriere Lake is demanding that the Government of Canada send observers to witness a leadership re-selection, in accordance with Barriere Lake's Customary Governance Code, in good faith recognize the outcome, and then cease all interference in their internal affairs.

– 30 –

Media Contacts:

Norman Matchewan, Barriere Lake spokesperson: 819-435 - 2171

Michel Thusky, Barriere Lake spokesperson : (819) 435-2171

Collectif de Solidarité Lac Barrière
*******************************************
www.solidaritelacbarriere.blogspot.com
barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com
514.398.7432
Reply

Forward

This little gem of insanity was recently introduced by Republican Tom Tancredo.

The Jihad Prevention Act will, among other things, "require aliens to attest that they will not advocate installing a Sharia law system in the United States as a condition for admission."

It will also allow anyone advocating the installation of a Sharia Law system to have their visa and/or naturalization paper's revoked.

Shawn Brant has had 7 of the charges against him dropped by the Ontario Crown.

He has plead guilty to 3 of the other charges against him and according to CBC will "receive a sentence of time already served in pretrial detention, plus a 90-day conditional sentence to be spent on his reserve."

A presentation made in August of this year in Napanee, Ontario by Brant's lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, warned that Brant was going to expose police actions if taken to trail including alleged illegal wire tapping by the OPP and the reversal of previously granted immunity.

The crown was seeking a 12 year jail sentence for Brant.

*Correction: In the original edit of this posting, Peter Rosenthal was incorrectly said to have made a presentation in Caledonia. The presentation was in Napanee.

Hat Tip: shmeen from livejournal

John Gray argues that the US financial crisis marks the end of the US/IMF model of "deregulation" economics, the end of US primacy, and the rise of economies that managed to avoid US/IMF strictures.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy. China in particular was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.

(Article via Murray Dobbin's mailing list)

Yesterday, they pointed out in a front page article that Harper's ministers are getting a lot of face time with oil companies.

Today, La Presse upped the ante again with five-pages of coverage of Alberta's tar sands. Fronting with the headline "Saudi Alberta," the coverage puts the accent on environmental devastation and crimes against Indigenous communities to--I would say--a greater extent than the Dominion's own tar sands issue did.

It's the first in a series on the tar sands.

If you read French, it's worth a look.

A strange and incredible amount of information is flowing from the Guardian about the inner workings of the $700 billion deal between Republicans and Democrats to bail out the US economy.

It's tough to judge what is real and what is fake but there some incredible stuff coming out.

According to one report, a deal had been reached by all parties until a group of hard-right, free-market Republicans met privately with McCain and threw a new "free-market" proposal into the mix.

Their behaviour at the meeting was a study in contrasts, according to press accounts. Obama, granted deference by his fellow Democrats, led off the debate.

Then [Republican minority house leader] Boehner made his move, throwing down a plan that differed wildly from the one under discussion. McCain, asked for his opinion, stayed silent - and that, according to those at the meeting, was taken by his fellow Republicans as a sign of his support for the Republican revolt.

Ironically, a Republican on the Senate banking committee, Richard Shelby, was doing his best to paraphrase the thesis of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine; that in a state of crisis the ideas lying around are the ones which get used:

"They're trying to push this in an emotional state, saying the sky's falling on our heads," he said. "Every time we have rushed to judgment in the past, we have paid for it."

Former labour leader Buzz Hargrove has ignored retirement and joined the advisory board of the NHL Players Association.

According to Hockeybuzz.com: "Buzz Hargrove (Toronto, Ontario) served as the national president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union since his acclamation in 1992 until he recently retired in September 2008. Hargrove has been one of Canada’s top labour leaders and has extensive collective bargaining experience."

Let's hope the players don't mysteriously lose the right to strike!

Jon Stewart: "The press is 6-year-olds playing soccer; nobody has a position, it's just 'Where's the ball? Where's the ball? Sarah Palin has the ball!' [Mimes a mob running after her.] Because they can only cover one thing."

I've just discovered pingnews.com's photostream on Flickr. It's loaded with interesting archival images that are not copyrighted. Enjoy!

Above: The Almightier, published in Puck Press, 1907 May 15.

Dominion readers in Vancouver are invited to come to State of the Media, a discussion about alternative media, with folks from Coop Radio Vancouver, the Dominion, rabble.ca, Warrior Publications and AliveinMexico.

The event is on Friday, September 26 at 7 p.m., at 706 Clark Drive (at Georgia St).

There will also be food & music (& probably dancing too).

See you there!

Photo by Dawn.

Stéphane Dion spoke this evening to a crowd of over 400 students at the University of British Columbia.

During the question period, I asked him if he would support a Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Colombia.

Dion (in English, he had previously answered in French):

"The question was about, uh, if we will accept a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. The way it was negotiated by the Conservatives we have no guarantee at all that the basic rights will be respected through this agreement, the workers rights, and so on. It [sic] is why we can not accept it."

The Liberals released their election spending plan on Monday with promises on health care, education, infrastructure, environment and aboriginal affairs.

But what about housing?

Though housing concerns have been major in certain parts of the country, the Grit plan was mum on the word.

But surprisingly this might be the norm. According to Howard Tessler of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations (of which this author is an employee) none of the parties have released any sort of housing plan to date.

"It's one of the most important issues for all Canadians", he said. "There's nothing."

With the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch and the subsiqent transformation of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the titans of Americas investment industry has now been wiped off the map.

How bad is it and what does it mean?

A couple of US Congress members who had a nice little chat with the US Fed Chairmen and the US Treasury Secretary had this to say last Friday:

"We’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally. Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words. We have never heard language like this."

But is it all a smoke-screen designed to give the Fed and Treasury complete control over bail-out money? According to economist Paul Krugman:

"Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a "clean" plan. "Clean," in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review "by any court of law or any administrative agency," and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal."

Dr. Samira Laouni, federal NDP candidate in Bourassa, Montréal (pictured above), was viciously attacked on Benoît Dutrizac's radio show, broadcast on September 10 on 98.5FM (a summary of the interview was published by the Montréal Gazette).

Laouni, termed "Québec's first veiled federal candidate" by mainstream media outlets, weathered Dutrizac's questioning with calm composure. Interrogated about her marriage, her religious beliefs, and her sexuality, with her measured responses Laouni revealed the deeply Islamophobic, misogynist presuppositions of Dutrizac's questions.

Following the interview, calls for Dutrizac's resignation came from the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). The CAF is also filing a complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), urging a full investigation of Corus Radio Network (the media outlet that owns 98.5FM), based in Toronto.

Radio Regulations (Broadcasting Act, 1986) forbid the broadcasting of

any abusive comment that, when taken in context, tends or is likely to expose an individual or a group or class of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or mental or physical disability.

A new Ipsos Reid poll reveals that Canadians don't like too much about any of the leaders in the current federal election.

According to the Ottawa Citizen:

"Stephen Harper is a George W. Bush clone with a hidden agenda. Jack Layton is not the champion of the average "kitchen table" Canadian. Stéphane Dion is not a team player and is wrong on the environment and economy.

Those are the findings of a new poll that shows widespread dissatisfaction and disillusionment with Canada's three national party leaders currently vying for the job of prime minister in the federal election."

Or: The Coup D'Etat vs. The Liberal Plane

Members of the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake crashed Lawrence Cannon's press conference in Maniwaki yesterday, demanding a meeting with Cannon, an immediate leadership reselection process in the community, and for the Federal Government to uphold the shared use agreement it signed with the community. (Check out this photo essay for some background).

[If you're looking for election newsy, gossipy, scandalous coverage, don't despair. Read on. The juicy stuff is at the bottom.]

In June, people from Barriere Lake and several supporters occupied Lawrence Cannon's office in Buckingham, QC. Then, Cannon refused to meet, and two Algonquins and four supporters were arrested for refusing to leave until Cannon met with them. (Full disclosure: I was one of the supporters.)

Several other demonstrations were held, before and after, targeting Cannon and various other government officials. It all stems from when, in 2006-2007, the Feds imposed a minority faction as the government.

The background to this story is extensive. It is worth looking into, as it reveals some elementary but shocking truths about Canada's colonial policies and how they are intimately tied to control of natural resources.